Our Corner of the Galaxy
by rhymeswithblue
Summary: As he watched her, he came to two gut-wrenching conclusions: first, that he was never going to be able to kill her; and second, that she was never made for the dark side. - (In which Rey is a Stormtrooper and Kylo takes her in as an apprentice. A retelling.)
1. part one

part one

"Are you mad?!" she hollered, before he urgently shushed her. She lowered her voice to an angry whisper instead. "You can't leave. That's suicide!"

They were crammed inside a broom closet on the Star Destroyer. She had been walking back towards her bunk in the Lower Quarters when he grabbed her and pulled her into the dimly lit closet.

"Come with me," he replied.

"No! What's gotten into you?"

He removed his white helmet and leaned in closer. "It was my first time being deployed today."

"You really shouldn't take that off," she said. She'd done it far too many times before and gotten her fair share of punishments. But the way he was looking at her now, seeing the determination in his eyes, she knew that there was no changing his mind.

"I can't just kill innocent lives. I don't want to be a pawn for the First Order anymore. I watched BD-1909 die in my arms, and no one cares! Phasma is already onto me, she'll have me executed for not firing my blaster tonight. A whole village, did you hear? He ordered an entire village to be slaughtered, like it was nothing." His hushed voice cracked at the end. He grabbed both of her hands and she could feel him trembling.

"If Phasma knows, then you need to go _now_," she said. "But I can't go with you."

"We'll run away, far, far from here. We'll try to find our families, yeah? We can go wherever you want, just _please_, Rey."

"Shh!" She cautiously peered through the small slits in the closet door. The coast was clear. "I worked so hard for this, you know I have. I trained and slaved away in order to be a fighter pilot. I can't risk my job if we get caught."

Finally, he sighed. "Alright, fine. But how am I going to escape if I can't fly a ship?"

She perked up, remembering the rebel prisoner they dragged in earlier. "I know where you can find a pilot."

She led him upstairs to the interrogation room where the prisoner was still strapped in. Standing before the door, she glanced down both ends of the hallway before quickly giving him a hug. "I'll miss you," she whispered.

He held her tightly. "One last chance to change your mind?"

She stepped away and shook her head. She tapped the nose of his helmet. "Stay safe, okay?"

And that was the last time she thought she would ever see FN-2187 again.

But, alas.

Not even two minutes later, alarms rang out throughout the Star Destroyer. Captain Phasma's sinister voice came on over the intercom: "_Backup personnel requested at the hangar bay immediately._"

Turning on her heels, she sprinted towards the hangar. The scene that met her there stopped her in her tracks. The rebel pilot had managed to start the engines on a TIE fighter, but did not manage to detach from the landing dock. A growing crowd of Stormtroopers were shooting at the rogue fighter while the fighter's gunner (presumably FN-2187) shot back aimlessly. She groaned as she tried to fit in with the surrounding guards. How in the stars would she get him out of this one?

Then the guards readied the large turbo blasters, aiming the guns at the TIE fighter, which was still struggling in the air to rip away from the chain. She calculated the odds in her head. It was not good.

Suddenly, something flickered inside her. Sheer panic was settling in, but this flicker was something else. It was stronger than fear, stronger than anger. She thought, maybe if she had gone with him after all, maybe she could have pulled off the escape unscathed. If her best friend died because of this, she would never be able to forgive herself.

The small flicker she felt grew into a greater sensation that spread through her body, starting from her heart and pulsating down her limbs. It burned through her veins like fire. Her vision glowed red. She didn't remember ever feeling this before, and yet it was oddly familiar. As if the sparks had always been within her, but they were only now igniting into flames.

Somewhere nearby, General Hux called out the order for the turbo blasters to fire. The fighter surged into the air in one last attempt, but the chain remained in place, dragging them back.

She squeezed her eyes shut and the culminating energy shot out of her like an erupting volcano.

The power of it sent her stumbling back a few steps. When she opened her eyes, everything was in wreckage. The entire landing dock structure had fallen to pieces, which finally allowed the rebel pilot to speed out into space. The impact also knocked every other person in the hangar off their feet. Everyone looked around in confusion, murmuring to each other.

Frantically, she spun around the room. Maybe they won't know that it was her. Was it _even_ her? Surely she wasn't capable of...whatever it was that just happened. But to her dismay, she soon realized that she was the only person still standing. Sadly, it was too late to dramatically drop to the floor and feign ignorance.

When she turned back towards Phasma, she felt her stomach drop in dread. Kylo Ren had appeared and both Phasma and Hux were speaking with him. She tried to use this opportunity to slip away, but right at that moment, Phasma turned and pointed straight at her.

"Step closer." Kylo's voice was deep and reverential. Not loud, but impossible to miss.

She took a tentative step in his direction.

"That was an order, JA-0946!" Phasma barked at her angrily.

She hurried the rest of the way until she stood before Phasma, Hux, and Kylo. Instinctively, she assumed her "being reprimanded" posture—feet together, hands clasped together in front of her, head looking down.

Through the corner of her mask, she saw Phasma pull up her files on her datapad. "JA-0946, nineteen years of age, fighter pilot. She has seven previous infractions: four for removing her helmet without permission, two for referring to herself by name, and one for flying a fighter without authorization."

"How did someone who flew a fighter without authorization end up becoming a pilot?" Kylo asked. She raised her head to sneak a glance at him. He almost sounded impressed.

"Well..." Phasma hesitated, like it pained her to say this, "...she was quite good at it."

"Anything else?" Kylo asked. He began to walk a circle around her, scrutinizing her up and down. She fidgeted under his gaze.

"She was in the same cohort as the defector who escaped, FN-2187. They trained together their whole lives."

"She must be executed at once," Hux said. "Look what she did! She damaged the entire hangar and helped the Resistance hostage escape!"

But Kylo was not paying attention to Hux, he was only focused on her. "Did you really do this?"

All of a sudden, he stuck his hand out towards her head and she felt an uncomfortable pulling sensation in her brain, like he was trying to suck her thoughts out. She'd seen him do this before, but had been fortunate enough to have never been on the receiving end until now. She strained against the pressure.

Then just like that, it was over. He brought his hand back down and the pulling sensation disappeared. Her shoulders sagged as she caught her breath.

"I'll handle it from here," Kylo said curtly before he grabbed her wrist and walked off with her in tow. She blindly stumbled after him, needing to slightly jog in order to keep up with his large, fast strides.

Behind them, Phasma and Hux protested but Kylo ignored them. His grip on her wrist was surprisingly gentle.

He led them towards his personal ship, parked on the other side of the hangar. Thankfully, it remained intact. As they passed the other Knights, Kylo nodded towards them. "Take us back to Starkiller."

The Knights and several officers scrambled onto the ship, preparing it for travel. She followed Kylo towards the back of the ship where there was a private room lined with shiny black walls and red leather seats. With a wave of his hand, the sliding doors closed behind them.

Her heart raced at the prospect of being alone in close proximity to Kylo Ren. She had never spoken to him before, but the rumors whispered by other Stormtroopers terrified her. This man was notoriously ruthless, heartless, and the strongest Force user after Snoke himself. She would take Phasma berating her any day over facing the wrath of this man.

"Take off your helmet," he said.

She didn't need to be told twice. She hated wearing the damn helmet, it felt like there was never enough air to breathe. Still, she did not trust him. After releasing the airlock and slipping the helmet off her head, she gave him a wary look. "Why?"

"So I can see if you're telling the truth."

"Why don't you just do the mind reading thing again?" She raised her hand to his face, copying his previous move. His hand caught around her wrist and pulled her hand back down. She immediately looked away, regretting her actions. Now she's done for, gone on and _mocked _him like the idiot that she was.

If he was offended, he didn't show it. "Was this the first time you used the Force?"

She opened her mouth but didn't know what to say. Up until now, she had avoided thinking about what _it_ was, but now he's said it aloud and there's no point in denying it. She was one with the Force. And if she was really honest with herself, she had always known this, deep inside.

"Yes." Her response came out barely more than an exhale.

"All these years, it has been hidden inside you," he said, "waiting to finally be awakened. I've never seen anything like it."

The ship jolted slightly as it lifted into the air, flying out of the Destroyer hangar. Soon, the ship jumped into lightspeed.

Nervously, she wrapped her arms around her helmet in front of her chest. "So, am I in trouble? Another thirty electric lashes?"

"No," he replied quickly. "In fact, you will never be punished by Phasma again. I'm relieving you of your Stormtrooper duties."

"What? Then what will I do?"

"You will work for me. I'll help you, I'll teach you how to use the Force." He stepped closer, leaning down to stare intently at her. "I'll show you everything you want to know."

It was too surreal. For her entire life, only three good things have happened. The first was meeting FN-2187. The second was passing the aptitude test to be assigned to a Star Destroyer, rather than stuck on patrol duty on some destitute planet. The third was becoming a fighter pilot, because she had never felt as free as when she was flying. But Kylo's offer was a level of freedom she never even dared dream of.

"How do I know _you're_ telling the truth?" Her breath trembled as she spoke.

She hadn't expected him to, but he removed his mask and she saw his face for the first time. Long black hair, darker than his cape. Lips pressed into a permanent frown. But his eyes...they were tired, yet they were kind. Where she expected malice, she saw the earnest truth.

* * *

They consulted with Snoke. Hux wanted the girl executed. Kylo wanted to make her an apprentice.

"She is untrained, but she is strong, I could feel it," Kylo explained. "She brings so much potential to the First Order."

"Yes, I could sense it through the Force. Train her, then bring her to me. I worry for her draw to the light." Snoke paused before narrowing his gaze onto Kylo. "I worry for you, as well."

* * *

For the next two days, he taught her in his personal training room. It was in his private chambers on Starkiller Base, under an obscene amount of security, including a special set of doors which could only be opened with the Force. Trust was not a First Order virtue.

They stood on opposite sides of a steel table. He placed a mug in the center of the table. "Focus."

She zeroed in on the ceramic mug, felt the Force grow from her core, and willed it to pull the mug towards her. The mug began to shake, creating a soft tapping sound against the table. Ever so slightly, it lifted in the air and—_smash!_ The mug burst into pieces.

He waved all the stray shards off the table and into the bin beside it, which was already half full of other broken mugs.

She huffed in frustration and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Can't we do something else?"

"No. You need to refine the raw energy inside you. This is the first step." He placed a new mug on the table.

Leaning onto her elbows on the table, she rested her chin in her hands. "All I do is destroy," she muttered.

He didn't say anything and she thought maybe he didn't hear her, but when she glanced up, he was looking at her with a strange expression. Almost endearing. He always took his mask off when they were alone together in the training room. She preferred it this way, but it also made her wonder if that was why he wore the mask in the first place: to hide his eyes.

He moved to her side of the table, reaching his hands towards her before stopping. "May I?" he asked.

She nodded and he stepped behind her, gently placing three gloved fingers on each temple at the sides of her head. "Try again."

She narrowed her eyes, focusing on the mug. The tips of his gloves were cool against her skin. She beckoned the Force and all too soon, it was swelling uncontrollably inside her until—

"Stop." His hands abruptly clamped down on her shoulders, pressing downwards. The surge inside her simmered out. The mug remained in one piece, for now.

With a deep breath, she turned around to face him with a questioning look. "So what am I doing wrong?"

"You are afraid," he said. "Your mind keeps going back to when you first used the Force."

His words brought back the memory of watching the TIE struggle and watching the turbo blasters prepare to obliterate the ship and her best friend into smithereens. She thought of all the times she had wanted to run away when she was younger, when the training had exhausted her to the bones, when she cried silently at night missing her parents who she couldn't even remember. She only stayed because she knew the First Order would find her and they would kill her, shooting her in the back while she was still running. This perpetual fear, it shaped her entire being.

"You don't have to be scared anymore," he continued. "Leave the past behind you. No more rules, no more commands, no more pain. Your life will be better now. I promise."

She tilted her head to the side, scrutinizing him. "You can't promise that."

"I can." His voice was steady and confident. No one has ever protected her. The only reason she's made it this far was her own tenacity and willpower. Who knew her guardian angel would come in form of a villain in disguise?

"What's your name?" he suddenly asked.

She froze. "JA-0946."

"No, your _name_." The edge of his lip quirked up, amused. "That was one of your infractions, right? You referred to yourself by name."

The last time she got caught for it, she got fifty electric lashes to her forearms. It took three days for her hands to stop shaking afterwards. But now, under the security of his new promise, she felt the courage to say it once more. "Rey. I don't remember where I came from and I don't remember what my parents look like, but I remember my name. It's the only thing I have left."

"A name is a powerful thing," he agreed.

They were interrupted by Hux's voice through the intercom. _"We tracked the droid."_

He grabbed his mask and briskly walked to the door, undoing the multiple levels of security. Just as he was about to step out, he turned towards her expectantly. "Well, are you coming, Rey?"

She quickly ran after him, hiding a secret smile as he led her through the winding corridors. She just might follow this man anywhere in the galaxy.

* * *

They boarded one of the transports along with the Knights. She saw the Knights in passing, but they never spoke to her. On the other hand, General Hux spoke to her far too much. His holo was projected inside the transport as he updated Kylo on the success of the Starkiller in annihilating Hosnian Prime. His eyes flickered to the side when he caught sight of her standing behind Kylo.

"Excuse me, who gave you clearance to leave?" Hux yelled.

"I did," Kylo replied. "She's coming with me."

Hux balked at this. "You're taking her? Out onto Takodana? She is nowhere near prepared for a field mission!"

"Do you command this ship or do I?" Kylo shot back before pressing a button to shut off Hux's projection.

As the transport descended into the trees, she peered out the window in awe at the surroundings. She pressed a hand against the cold glass. "I didn't know there was this much green in the whole galaxy."

When she finally looked away, Kylo was wordlessly staring at her with that strange expression again. He has done this a lot ever since they first met. Staring at her like she was wonderfully mad.

After they landed, she leaned over to him as they waited for the walkway to lower. "Why do we need this droid?"

"It has the map to Luke Skywalker."

"You mean he's real?" she asked. "The Jedi are real?"

"Of course they are."

Outside, there was already a battle ensuing before a collapsing building. She stood on her tip toes, trying to see who the Stormtroopers were fighting against. Was this the Resistance? She had never seen them in person before.

"The Resistance is loyal to a nostalgic past but ignorant to its flaws," Kylo explained. "Do you know how many famines there were under the New Republic? Planets were starving to death because wealthy politicians couldn't negotiate a trade deal. Under our Supreme Leader, the First Order will bring unprecedented prosperity and order to the galaxy. But the Resistance refuses to let the past die."

She heard the relentless fervor in his voice. She was familiar with this doctrine, but rarely heard anyone speak of it with such conviction.

His hand rested on her shoulder, pushing her back down firmly on her heels. "Try to sense the droid, Rey. Find it with your mind."

She closed her eyes and felt the Force expand across the forest. But then there was a loud cry and she opened her eyes to see an explosion that sent bodies flying. She closed her eyes again, restarting her search. but the battle kept distracting her. So many were dying.

Then, she felt a strong bond in the Force connecting into the battlefield. Kylo was looking out into the distance. His hand, still on her shoulder, squeezed tighter. She found who he was looking at, an old man standing next to a Wookie. The old man similarly stood entranced, staring back.

"Kylo?" she asked tentatively, touching his elbow. His grip on her shoulder was starting to hurt her.

The connection quickly snapped and he let go of her. He turned away, marching into the forest. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her along. She looked back over her shoulder before they slipped into the trees. The man was still watching them. But she could tell he was hoping it was someone else who looked back.

Deeper in the forest, she could finally sense it. He gave her a silent nod and ran off further ahead. They were going to trap the rebel and the droid from both directions.

The rebel saw Kylo first, then Rey. He raised his blaster and she raised hers. Kylo activated his lightsaber.

"Who's this, your new girlfriend?" the rebel jeered.

"Give me the droid," Kylo demanded.

The rebel looked back and forth between them. He switched to point his blaster at Rey, then back at Kylo, then back at Rey.

Finally, the rebel made up his mind who to shoot at and she ducked just in time, feeling the blaster bolt skim by above her head. She started to panic. Hux was right, she was _not_ ready for this. A day and a half of training and shattering her way through the cafeteria's entire mug set did not prepare her for this. She was better at shooting from a fighter; this was much too close for comfort.

As Kylo and the rebel continued dueling, she caught sight of the droid hiding behind a bush. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and focused. _Gentle, gentle,_ she repeated to herself. But all too soon, the energy gathered inside her much too strong. She opened her eyes, trying to stop it, but it was too late. The force emanated out of her uncontrollably.

"No!" Kylo sent a strong wave over to her, knocking her backwards. It also shifted her focus just enough that it was a nearby boulder that exploded, instead of the droid. The giant rock blew apart to pieces.

One of the pieces hit the rebel in the head. He fell to the ground, unconscious. She slowly walked closer, until she could see the slight movements of his chest rising and falling. She breathed a small sigh of relief.

Kylo had managed to immobilize the droid. He picked it up awkwardly from the ground before shoving it to her arms. He marched back towards the transport without another word. He didn't scold her for almost destroying their only source of valuable intel. She almost wished he had. She hung her head and followed him back out of the forest, carrying the lifeless droid.

The battle still continued as they returned. She nearly tripped when she saw who was now leading the charge for the Resistance. There, wielding a blue lightsaber, was none other than her best friend. For a split second, she was ecstatic to learn that FN-2187 was alive and well. Then, that joy was replaced by overwhelming dread. What was he doing here? And where the hell did he get an old Jedi lightsaber?

At that moment, he looked up and locked eyes with her across the field. They both froze. Two best friends, both finally out of their Stormtrooper suits, both suddenly thrust on on opposite sides of the war.

Giving FN-2187 an apologetic look, she ran after Kylo. She reached up and tapped the back of his shoulder. "Kylo, are they going to stop?"

"Stop?"

"We have the droid now," she said. "They can stop fighting?"

When he turned around and spoke to her, all kindness had disappeared from his voice. This was not the same man who saw the fear inside her and promised a better life. This was the tyrant she had grown up fearing most of all. "I overlooked your role in helping the traitor escape. I will not overlook a second misstep."

Their transport departed from the planet. Still holding the droid, her arms encircling its spherical base, she walked close to the window and watched more and more people die. She prayed on the stars that FN-2187 was safe. She kept watching until they were high enough that she could no longer make out the individual figures. She kept watching until a fleet of Resistance jets appeared over the horizon.

Back on the Starkiller, Kylo took off walking faster than ever, in a manner that implied he did not want her to follow. "What about the droid?" she called out.

"Take it to the lab," he replied bluntly.

She began walking to the lab but then hesitated. She headed down a separate walkway to find Hux. He was surprised to see her come up to him and even more surprised to her carrying the coveted droid.

"There was a man, back there in the battle. Part of the group that had the droid. He kept looking at Kylo and Kylo kept looking back. Do you know who he is?"

The general's face lit up in a sinister grin. "Oh, you don't know. That man is Han Solo."

She balked at the name of the legendary smuggler and pilot. But then she shook her head. "Why does Kylo care about an old Rebellion war hero?"

Hux leaned in closer, so the passing guards and officers couldn't overhear. "Because that's his father."

She thought about it all the way to the lab. The lab was empty except for two analytical bots. She set the droid down on an examination table and then softly placed her hand against its white and orange base. Kylo would be outraged if he knew what she was doing, yet curiosity got the better of her.

_Gentle. Gentle. Patience. _She breathed deeply, reaching out to find the Force a different way, without fear. She remembered the beauty of the trees, the fresh scent of the air, the gentle breeze on that sunny day.

This time, the Force left her palm in a soft caress, rather than its usual punch. The droid lit up, beeping awake.

She laughed in amazement, clutching her hands to her chest. For the first time since she's discovered the Force, she had fixed something rather than damaged it.

The droid immediately rolled down from the table, landing with a small bounce, and whirred in circles around the room. Thankfully, the door was closed and out of reach for the small droid. After knocking over several stools and stands, it burrowed underneath the table, hiding behind some toolboxes. She sat down in front of it. "Hey. I won't hurt you. I promise."

The droid's head moved side to side, scrutinizing her. She scooted closer underneath the table. She noticed its antenna was bent, so she helped straighten it. The droid beeped back in appreciation.

"Can you tell me what it's like?" she whispered. "The Resistance?"

* * *

Leia was at Poe's side when he woke up in the med bay back at the Resistance base. He was already talking a mile a minute before the nurse could finish wrapping the bandage around his head. "General, I saw him."

She nodded gravely and sighed. "Yes, Han told me."

"And the girl," he added.

"Girl? What girl?"

"She's a Force user, and a strong one at that. She did this to me!" He gestured to his bloody, heavily bandaged head.

"Another Force user?" Leia looked away, her eyes flickering back and forth rapidly, deep in thought. "Do you have any idea who she is?"

"Her name is Rey." Finn walked up to them, answering her previous question. "Or JA-0946, technically. We grew up together. She's never shown signs of the Force before, but the other day...I thought it was too crazy to be true, but I think she caused that big explosion that let us escape to Jakku."

"Then it proves that she's trained," Poe continued, "but I'll admit she scares the shit out of me. Now that he's taken her under his wing, General, what the hell are we going to do? The First Order has Snoke _and _two strong Force users _and_ the map to Luke and...and we have nothing."

"Not nothing," Finn said. He handed Leia a lightsaber hilt which she could recognize from anywhere. "Maz gave this to me."

She looked at him and at his eager eyes and could sense the subtle pull of his own Force energy. It was diminished from years of suppression, but his heart was pure. You can always train power, but it was impossible to change someone's heart. (Almost impossible.)

She handed the lightsaber back to him.

* * *

The lieutenant brought up the projection of the map recovered from the droid. They were inside the bridge of Starkiller Base and all the officials gathered to inspect the map.

"This is it?" Kylo said, walking around the projection. "The map is incomplete."

"This is all that was contained on the chip," the lieutenant confirmed. "We ran a comparison and these planet systems do not match anything in our database. We believe the Resistance may have the rest of the map."

In a rage, Kylo raised his hand and the lieutenant as lifted out of his seat, fighting against the Force's stranglehold on him.

Hux stepped forward. "So, it is a good thing then, that we have discovered the Resistance base's location."

Kylo hated when this happened. When Hux gloated because he had more information, always trying to undermine Kylo's authority. With a flick of his fingers, he released his hold on the lieutenant who fell back onto the floor. Hux stepped over the lieutenant and brought up a different holo projection: the planet D'Qar.

Standing up straighter, Kylo barked out his orders. "I will retrieve the rest of the map and then we destroy the entire planet."

"And what of the rebels?" Hux intentionally said this to push him. They both knew that both of Kylo's parents were likely on D'Qar.

If he didn't have his mask on, his face might have betrayed him. But here, through his mask, his response was curt and cold. "Take no survivors."

He spun on his heels and stormed out of the room. Emotions swirled in disarray inside him; this was his biggest weakness, Snoke had said. Always so quick to anger, so furious that it blinded him. But underneath the anger was a deep ache, constantly gnawing at him. An ache threatening to overpower the anger, threatening to tear him apart.

When he reached his chambers, he hastily waved his arms to bypass the security protocols. The second the doors shut behind him, he ripped off his helmet and threw it against the wall. He stood there fuming, staring at the floor.

After a few tense moments, his raging thoughts were interfered by a soft tapping against his shoulder. He looked over and was surprised to see, of all things, a mug with a hot, blue liquid floating steadily in midair.

He hadn't noticed she was in the room until now. She walked over, barely able to contain the beaming smile across her face. He could feel the happiness radiating from her. His anger gradually fizzled out.

He grabbed the mug from where it floated and wrapped his hands around it. The warmth was calming. "I haven't had warm milk since I was a child."

She grinned. "I could sense you were upset. And warm milk fixes everything."

"My mother used to say that." The words slipped out before he could stop it. The deep ache returned.

She reached out, as if to touch his arm, but then pulled back. "Your father is the famous war hero from the Rebellion and your mother is...?"

"The Republic's favorite princess."

Her eyes widened and her mouth narrowed into a small 'oh'.

"How did you..." she struggled to find the words to ask the question he knew she wanted to ask. "How did you first learn to use the Force, then? Who trained you?"

The ache was growing stronger. He fought the urge to crush the mug with his hands. "Snoke did," he lied.

"Right. We don't have to talk about that." She pointed emphatically to the mug in his hands, the mug that was most definitely still in one piece, despite both of their destructive tendencies.

He drank the milk from the mug and wiped his mouth against his sleeve, something his mother would have yelled at him for. Rey let out a small chuckle at his boyish actions. "You did...uh, good." His words were painfully awkward. He'd spent so long with Snoke and the First Order, he'd forgotten how to give compliments.

Hearing his awkward compliment and seeing his perplexed expression, she tilted her head back and laughed.

He'd forgotten what actual laughter sounded like, too.

* * *

The plan was to get the droid and blow up the Starkiller.

Leia watched the Resistance pilots jump into their X-wings and fly up towards Starkiller Base. The last to depart was the Millennium Falcon. Finn, Han, and Chewie would be in charge of ground ops and rescuing BB-8.

"General," Finn said as he clutched the lightsaber tightly in his hands. "I still have no idea what I'm doing."

"What to know a secret? No one does," she replied with a smile. "Just trust your instincts."

Suddenly, Chewie called out from the cockpit. They all hurried inside as Poe's voice patched through: "Incoming TIE fighter."

They peered up towards the sky. A single black fighter was entering the atmosphere.

"Should I come back?" Poe asked. Then, there was the sound of gunfire in the background. The rest of the TIE fighters had launched to fend off the aerial attack.

"No, we need you to lead the squadrons. We need every one of you out there for this plan to work." Leia locked eyes with Han. "We can handle Ben."

Han nodded, placing one hand on Finn's shoulder and one on Chewie's arm. "You guys go. I'll stay."

* * *

He didn't take her with him this time. She was still a liability, sure, but his quest also seemed deeply personal.

As a result, she now lingered along the back of the bridge, watching the commotion as the generals and captains barked orders to the fighter pilots above. Hux kept screaming, his face turning redder than his hair. Monitors beeped and voices shouted over each other. Through the windows, there were bursts of explosions as yet another fighter was hit and engulfed in flames.

She felt all the sounds blur together and fade away. What were they even fighting _for_? Rushing to steal intel from each other, rushing to blow each other up first. The galaxy was so big; there was more than enough space for everyone. Yet both sides wanted to conquer it all.

Sometimes, she thought maybe everyone kept fighting in wars because they simply didn't know how to live without one.

All of a sudden, she was knocked off her feet as BB-8 came careening into the room, rolling between her legs. She stuck her hands out to catch herself using the Force.

"How did the droid get in here?!" Hux shrieked. "He was disabled!"

An analyst watching over the security cameras stood up. "The defector and the Wookie are in the west sector."

She got back to onto her feet as even greater havoc ensued. Hux ran after the droid who comically evaded his grasps. The droid found what he was looking for, retrieving the chip containing the map to Skywalker and inserting it back into its base. When Hux ran after it again, BB-8 came to a complete stop, causing Hux to trip over its body and fall headfirst into the laps of two analysts.

She pressed a hand to her mouth to hide her laughing. BB-8 whizzed by, giving her a friendly beep.

"Stop laughing and go after it!" Hux hollered.

* * *

The remaining Resistance members watched the Falcon lift off, passing by the TIE fighter as it landed before the base. They gathered inside the base, just behind the doors, holding weapons at the ready. But Leia held up her hand to hold fire. She peered through the viewfinder to watch her son outside, exiting from the fighter. Her heart grew heavy.

Han, alone, stood before him.

* * *

Rey sprinted after the runaway droid. She fired at it, but BB-8 expertly dodged everything. The droid led the chase outside. Just as she set foot onto the snow, she felt the ground tremble underneath. A huge explosion echoed through Starkiller Base and down to the planet's core.

The Resistance did it, she realized. She watched the X-wings fly off into the sky. They hit the oscillator.

Far up ahead, she could see the ship where the rebel was already waiting. Her heart sank when she realized it was FN-2187. He gestured wildly at BB-8 for it to hurry.

The droid continued rolling in the snow and she chased after it. She fired one last shot at the droid, finally hitting the target. The blaster bolt knocked off one of the side panels and sent BB-8 spiraling sideways into a snow bank. Rey sprinted towards the fallen droid. FN-2187 did the same.

The flicker grew strong within her once again.

The droid had fallen closer to him. He was going to beat her to it. She knew what she had to do.

BB-8 turned its head to look at her as inquisitively as an expressionless droid could. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I know I promised I wouldn't hurt you."

And then, she channeled the Force and struck the droid. It burst into a hundred pieces of shrapnel and wires. She immediately focused on one piece in particular, willing it to fly in her direction. She reached out and grabbed the chip from midair, still too fast for him to notice. All the scraps of the droid fell onto the soft snow and he let out a devastated cry.

He activated his lightsaber, which glowed brilliantly blue in the cold dusk, and charged at her. She made a note that Kylo really needed to get her one of those. He swung his saber at her. She moved to dodge, but it grazed the top of her right collarbone. She hissed in pain.

Using as much energy as she could muster, she thrust her hand out at him and the energy sent him flying back. His body hit a tree and the lightsaber dropped from his hand.

She dropped to her knees, breathing hard. Those consecutive Force moves had exhausted her. Still, she concentrated at where the lightsaber laid on the ground and called it towards her. Just as it began flying over in her direction, it halted and then went flying backwards as the Force tugged it back.

She gasped. FN-2187 could also use the Force. He stood with his hand outstretched pulling the lightsaber towards him. She remained kneeling in the snow, leaning forward with her own arm outstretched, pulling it back. It bobbled back and forth before slowly but surely drifting in her direction. He could also use the force, but she was stronger. She slowly rose to her feet and twisted her hand in a final pull.

Grabbing a hold of the lightsaber hilt, she activated it and ran towards him. The blue light reflected in his eyes. He looked around, defenseless.

Just before she struck him, he blurted out, "Did you know he used to be a Jedi?"

She paused, the lightsaber held high in her backswing. "What?"

"Kylo Ren," FN-2187 said. "Did you know Luke Skywalker trained him to be a Jedi?"

"You're lying." But her voice was uncertain.

"So he didn't tell you. What else hasn't he told you?"

She took a step closer. He didn't flinch. "Why did you join the Resistance? I thought you wanted to run far away from all of this."

"I go by Finn now," he said. "Remember when you gave me that name?"

She lowered the lightsaber, just slightly. It had been twelve years ago. She didn't think he would have remembered the secret name. She repeated her question. "Why did you join the Resistance?"

"I started to think, to really think, about what the First Order has done. You think they ever cared about any of us? They stole us from our families when we were children and trained us to be disposable soldiers."

She deactivated the lightsaber.

"At first, I just wanted to run away," he continued. "But then I met Poe and Han and Chewie and Leia and...and they were so full of _hope_. They made me believe a better life was possible, for all of us."

_A better life. _She was starting to understand what everyone was fighting for, after all. Ultimately, both sides just wanted a better life, but they had very different views on how to achieve it. So then, who was right?

The ground trembled again under their feet. They both toppled backwards. A large crack formed, splitting the ground right between them.

Taking the split second opportunity when she had dropped the lightsaber, he reached over to grab it and made a run back to the ship. However, he stopped after a few steps and turned back round. The crack on the ground grew wider, separating them. He reached out over the growing chasm to extend his hand.

"I don't know what lies Kylo Ren has been telling you, but there is more than one side to the Force," he said. "You don't have to do this, Rey."

She stared at him in awe. This man had worked as a janitor for years because he had been too scared to go into battle. The bravest she had ever seen him was when he pulled her into the broom closet to announce he was leaving. But, as it turned out, he has been nothing but brave ever since.

The Wookie came running from the building, shouting at Finn as he ran into the ship to take cover. Trees were starting to fall over.

"Do the right thing. Please," Finn begged, still holding out his hand.

She reached out and placed her hand in his. His face broke into a smile.

But then the ground beneath her lurched backwards and their hands separated over the growing distance. She quickly scrambled away from the ledge and ran back towards the base. When she looked back one last time, Finn was looking down at his hand.

* * *

The only thing Finn could salvage was BB-8's broken headpiece. The top was dented in and the camera was hanging out of the socket, but he figured Poe deserved to have at least a part of his beloved droid.

When we walked into the Falcon holding the head piece, Chewie let out a dejected cry.

"I know," Finn replied, "I will miss BB-8 too. But there's hope, Chewie. We have hope."

Chewie gave him a questioning look.

Slowly, Finn opened his fist to reveal the chip containing the map. It was still intact.

* * *

She paced back and forth on the Star Destroyer, waiting. Hux told her to stop several times, but she didn't listen. When Kylo finally returned, it quickly devolved a three-way screaming match.

"Why didn't you tell me you used to be a Jedi?" she asked.

He looked sharply at Hux, who only shook his head. "It seems that traitor FN-2187 had a chat with Rey. Before she let them get away, that is."

"You let them get away?!" Kylo yelled at her.

She recoiled. It was the first time he had ever raised his voice _at her_. "I didn't let them get away, the whole planet _exploded_!"

"And how did a measly squadron of rebel scum manage that?" Kylo turned back to Hux.

"Because you took too long!" Hux retorted. "Or did you want us to blast D'Qar while you were still on it? And you didn't even get the rest of the damn map!"

Briefly, she saw a flash of Kylo's memory. _I know what I have to do...will you help me?_ It ended as abruptly as it appeared. She felt like she had been punched in the stomach. "...you killed your father?"

"Stay out of my thoughts!" he snapped at her.

"Oh, Snoke would love to hear about this!" Hux said. "Kylo Ren finally killed his pops! But what about your mother, huh? Couldn't handle killing two birds with one stone?"

"Shut up!" Kylo raised his hand and Hux was lifted into the air as he choked against Kylo's Force stranglehold.

Emboldened by her own anger, Rey reached out and overpowered Kylo. Hux fell down back onto his feet.

Kylo turned to her and she could feel him staring daggers at her through his mask. "You killed your father," she repeated.

He ignored her. "We don't need some old secret Resistance map. We'll go to the cartographers in the Outer Rim. They'll be able to decipher the map fragment we have."

"That would be a decent plan," Hux croaked out, hands still soothing his throat, "if Rey didn't destroy the map!"

"You destroyed the map?!"

She instinctively wrapped her arms around herself. For the second time since she's met him, Kylo Ren now scared her again. She didn't know which side of him was the real one anymore. One on hand, she was nothing but a cog in an evil machine she despised until that fateful day when she met him. He made her feel strong and important and _alive_. But on the other hand, as he stood over her now and yelled at her, she felt seven years old again, cowering in fear as Phasma scolded her to stop crying and work harder. She felt so helplessly small.

She focused on her anger, as it was the only thing preventing her from bursting into tears. "I blew up the droid with the map to prevent them from getting it." This was the first time she had lied to him.

Kylo walked closer until he towered menacingly tall over her. "When will you learn to _stop destroying everything_?!"

She winced at his words. For once, she was glad he was wearing the mask, because she couldn't bear it if she could see his eyes and know that he truly meant it.

"Why did you kill your father?" she asked yet again.

"You wouldn't understand."

Despite her efforts, the tears streamed down her face. "No, of course I wouldn't."

* * *

She heard the door open and close behind her and assumed it was medical droid.

"You can leave it on the table, I'll do it myself," she called out over her shoulder. It's been hours since their argument. She had run away to her room and refused to leave, even when he implored that she needed to get her wound treated. She sat on the bench facing the window, mindlessly counting the stars.

But the very human footsteps continued right up to where she was sitting. She turned around in her seat to find Kylo, carrying the medical kit. His mask was off.

Without a word, he began treating her shoulder wound, gingerly applying the ointment and wrapping the gauze. She kept looking down, avoiding eye contact. She wasn't going to be the first to apologize. Clearly, he wasn't either. She wasn't sure if he even knew how to apologize anymore.

So, she was surprised when, after he was done treating the wound, his hand lingered on the skin of her shoulder and he stepped even closer, leaned down, and placed a quick kiss on the top of her forehead. Then he turned and walked away without a word.

Maybe, just maybe, the monster still had a heart. And maybe this was the last chance to save him, before the darkness inevitably consumed him whole.

* * *

**note: **this is one of my favorite writing exercises where i change one important plot point and see how the differences would ripple out. and as usual, the story quickly got away from me and became way too long. part two is drafted and will be uploaded soon. part three is in progress. thanks for reading and stay tuned.


	2. part two

part two

"And look at you. The deed split your spirit to the bone."

It's been days, but Kylo couldn't shake the image from his mind. Standing before his father, alone. It was the first time they'd spoken to each other in over ten years. The Resistance wasn't going to put up a fight. Han stood there, without a weapon drawn, begging his son to come home. Forcing him to make a decision, one way or another.

"And the girl," Snoke continued. "You have been arguing with her and it's upsetting you. How pathetic. How very..._Anakin _of you."

"She means nothing to me," Kylo quickly replied.

Snoke's projection loomed larger as it floated closer. "Then kill her."

At the words, Kylo flinched. Snoke noticed as his face contorted into a wicked grin.

"Her allegiance to the defector will be her undoing. You must kill her before the Resistance changes her mind. Kill her, and prove your loyalty to me."

* * *

They had tracked the Resistance through lightspeed and just as Kylo was about to board his TIE fighter, Rey ran up and blocked his path. She was holding her old Stormtrooper pilot helmet. "I want to help." It was the first time she'd spoken to him since that night in her room, after their argument.

"Absolutely not," he said. He stepped to the side to walk around her to his ship, but she moved in perfect synchrony to block him again, as if she knew his every move.

"We lost two-thirds of the starfighter fleet back there with the Dreadnought," she said. "You need all the help you can get."

Then, he had an idea. "Alright then," he said, "let's see how good you really are at flying."

She smiled at him before putting on her helmet and running towards another TIE fighter.

As they flew out of the hangar bay and towards the Resistance cruiser, he let all the other ships fly past him so he was bringing up the rear. Up ahead, Rey expertly navigated her fighter, dodging the blasts from the cruiser's guns as she flew past the shields.

Kylo now switched over controls to the gun, which tracked the moving target for a few seconds before it was locked on Rey's fighter. He took a deep breath as his finger positioned over the trigger. Snoke's words echoed in his head: _Her allegiance to the defector will be her undoing. _

He tried to logically reason with himself. He's only known her for a handful of days, after all. She was nobody, a Stormtrooper who got the luck of the draw from the universe. She has no place in this story. Snoke was right. He had to kill her before it's too late. (Before his allegiance to her became his own undoing.)

He pressed the trigger and suddenly everything came flashing back to him. He remembered her laugh, the unyielding joy in her eyes when she finally learned to tame the Force, and the soft touch of her fingertips on his arm. But the blast had fired off from his ship and he couldn't call it back, even if he wanted to.

Just at the last second before the blast would have struck her fighter, she yanked her fighter upwards and over, without slowing, so that she was flying upside down and back away from the cruiser. The blast missed her by an inch.

"Kylo!" Her voice urgently called out through transmission. It was a direct communication signal, not broadcasted to the other pilots. He wondered how she knew to dodge the blast in time and how she possibly knew it was from him.

"Kylo," she yelled again, "your mother!"

That was when his eyes snapped back towards the Resistance cruiser, where the main bridge had been blasted apart. He pulled at the steering wheel of his ship, jerking it to a full stop. He realized Rey hadn't pulled off that nearly impossible maneuver to evade his gun blast, she did it to avoid the flying parts of the explosion.

From afar, he spotted his mother drifting in the vacuum of space. Then, she slowly drifted back inside the damaged cruiser.

So that was two lives miraculously saved that day. Rey and Leia. Snoke would be so displeased.

(But Kylo had never been more relieved.)

* * *

"I can't teach you," Luke said dismissively after Finn asked for a tenth time.

Finn stopped following the man up the hill and threw his hands up in frustration. "But you even taught Kylo Ren!"

Luke froze in his tracks, facing away from him. "Which is precisely why I will not train any more Jedi. I agreed to train Ben Solo even though I sensed the darkness in him, and that became the entire galaxy's undoing."

Finn ran up so that he could look Luke in the eyes. "That's not fair. Just because one of your students turned, you're proclaiming an end to all Jedi? There is bound to be evil within the Jedi, just like there is bound to be good within the dark side. Isn't that your job? To help bring balance to it all?"

"It's not so simple. It's easy for darkness to tarnish the light, but the dark side is a black hole. Nothing good can ever escape."

"Well, I did."

Finally, Luke was at a loss for words. "Who _are_ you?"

Rolling up his sleeve, Finn showed the small tattoo on his forearm, _FN-2187_.

* * *

Rey woke up to the sound of screaming. She hopped out of bed and out the door into the hallway. The screaming continued.

"Did you hear that?" she asked a passing guard.

"Hear what?" the guard responded.

Another scream. "There, just now," she said.

"I don't hear anything, _Rey_," the guard replied, spitting out her name. Ever since news spread that Kylo had taken in a Stormtrooper as an apprentice, she hasn't exactly been popular with her former comrades.

If the screams weren't audible, then she was hearing it with her mind. Which could only mean it was coming from one person. She walked through the maze of corridors on the ship before coming to Kylo's private living chambers. Just as she'd seen him do before, she waved her hand before the doors and unlocked it.

She had only ever been inside the front room, where they sometimes trained. But he was nowhere in sight, so she cautiously ventured through the back doorway to his bedroom. There, he sat at the foot of his bed, still wearing his masked helmet, head sagging low almost to his knees. He sat in the dark, only illuminated by the faint glow of starlight through the window.

Slowly, she approached him until she stood right before him. From his seated position, this was the first time she had ever had to look _down_ at him. Through their connection in the Force, his mental anguish roared unbearably loud. The same memory played over and over in his head. Igniting the lightsaber and watching his father's eyes as he died.

Taking a gamble, she placed her hands on the bottom of his helmet. He lifted his hands from his lap and she thought he would stop her, but instead he placed his hands on her waist. He leaned into her for support as he sat up straight. She lifted the helmet off his head and let it drop to the floor.

His pained expression nearly broke her heart. _Why?_ she wanted to ask, but didn't. _Why did you kill your father, when he gave a damn about you? __Why did you kill your father, when you clearly still loved him?_

Suddenly, his hands slipped behind her and his arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her closer. He pressed his face against her abdomen and held her tightly. She gasped, shocked by his actions and unsure how to react. She settled for one hand softly soothing his tense back while the other hand rested on his head. And she just stood there like a mother cradling an oversized baby, listening to his jagged breathing until it evened out.

After he finally pulled away, he reached down to grab his helmet from the floor. "Can you do me a favor?" he asked.

He then showed her what he wanted her to do with his thoughts. She chuckled softly. "Certainly."

He tossed the helmet across the room and while it was in midair, she shot a wave of the Force at it. It shattered into a pile of black metal scraps on the floor.

"You're getting too good at that," he muttered with the smallest hint of a grin.

She smirked back at him. "You could call it my signature move."

* * *

The next day, he surprised her with two kyber crystals so she could build her own lightsaber. She was so excited, she jumped up to hug him. When he stiffened at her touch, she immediately jumped back and pressed her hands to her side. He just shook his head and stared at her like the enigma that she was.

As he showed her the different designs on his holo, an officer came by to bring Kylo to the bridge to meet with the other generals. Leaving her with the lightsaber manuals, he walked to the Star Destroyer bridge where Hux and others were gathered by the window.

"So, what's the status?" Kylo asked. Out the window, he watched the Destroyer fire at the Resistance cruiser every twenty seconds. Each time, it deflected off of the cruiser's shields.

"By our calculations," Hux said, "they will run out of fuel in two days. So, what do you suggest our next move to be?"

"We wait it out."

"...for two days?"

"Is that a problem? Did you have big plans?"

A few of the officers stifled laughter with coughs. Kylo looked over at them with eyebrows raised.

"Sorry, sir," the captain said. "You just seem in better spirits."

Hux huffed indignantly. "Alright, you heard the orders. Back to your stations."

As Kylo walked out of the bridge, he shouted over his shoulder, "Oh, I'll be heading out for a while."

"To where?" Hux gestured to the continuing gunfire out the window. "We're in the middle of a battle."

In response, Kylo gestured to the very bored analysts and technicians sitting at their monitors. One had even fallen asleep, head on the keyboard. "As _riveting_ as this chase is, I think you can manage without me for a few hours."

When he returned to his room, he was shocked to find Rey holding up a completed double-bladed lightsaber. She had managed to build her own lightsaber in the span of mere minutes.

She held the hilt in both hands, horizontal across her chest, and activated her new lightsaber. Two red blades lit up from both sides. The double plasma blades hummed in harmony as she slowly spun the lightsaber in a circle, marveling at her creation.

"Want to properly test it out?" he asked, nodding his head back outside towards the hangar.

She deactivated the lightsaber, tucked it into her belt holster, and eagerly followed him towards the docked ships. "Where are we going?"

"Anywhere you want." He climbed into the cockpit of a larger TIE fighter built with two seats instead of one. She settled in beside him.

"Um, I don't really know a lot of planets," she said.

"Well, what kind of planet then? Jungle, desert, tundra?"

She pondered for a moment as he fiddled with the controls and started the engines. Her eyes widened and she clapped her hands together. "I want to see an ocean. I've never seen one before."

He nodded and inputted the coordinates to an old home.

* * *

"Okay, okay, okay," she said, out of breath. "You win."

They were practicing dueling and he had pinned her down, pressing his lightsaber down against her blade as she pushed upwards. He deactivated his lightsaber and she collapsed onto the ground.

"I can barely move my arms," she complained as she struggled to push herself up.

"That's enough training for the day." He walked away from the rocky plateau where they had been practicing and down towards the beach. Moving slowly to avoid getting sand in his boots, he sat down on the warm sand.

A few seconds later, she let her body fall backwards onto the beach next to him. Sand scattered everywhere.

"What was this planet called again?" she asked, her eyes closed as she laid in the sand.

"Chandrila."

"Have you been here before?"

He watched the small waves crash onto the shore. The rhythm was calming and nostalgic. The only other visitors on this beach was a family of Twi'leks, splashing around in the shallow water. When he looked back down at Rey, she had opened her eyes and was watching him.

"I was born here," he said.

She abruptly sat up, scattering more stray sand onto his lap. "You are from _here_?" she asked incredulously. "I didn't even know such beautiful places existed."

His eyes scanned the faint skyline towards the north. Chandrila had lost much of its grandeur since the fall of the New Republic. It was now a ghost town with abandoned buildings and an empty senate house. But she was right. Even now, it was beautiful. As the sun began to set over the water, the city patiently waited for the bustle of life to return.

"Can you tell me what it was like?" she asked. "Growing up here?"

He told her stories of playing pranks on C3PO, of sneaking onto his father's ship to tag along on his next adventure, of playing with a spare water pipe, pretending it was a lightsaber. As he spoke, one of the young Twi'lek girls wandered her way over to them carrying a seaflower from the water. Rey took the seaflower and gently placed it on top of the girl's head, so it looked like a flower crown. The girl laughed, hugged Rey's arm, and then walked back to her family.

Later, when they finally walked back to the fighter, she called out, "First one there gets to pilot!"

Immediately, she spun towards him with a foot sweep, knocking him off his feet and onto the ground. When he got back up, she was already sitting in his seat in the cockpit, smiling cheekily at him.

As he watched her expertly man the ship controls and steer them up towards the sky, he came to two gut-wrenching conclusions: first, that he was never going to be able to kill her; and second, that she was never made for the dark side.

* * *

Phasma was waiting for them when they landed back in the Mega-Destroyer hangar. "Supreme Leader Snoke would like to speak with you."

For a split second, Kylo looked terrified. But he quickly composed himself again. "I'll be right there."

"Not you," Phasma said, looking directly at Rey. "Her."

Phasma escorted her up the elevators to Snoke's personal throne room. Her legs were shaking, and she wasn't quite sure if it was because she was nervous or because she was exhausted from training.

"Am I in trouble?" Rey asked sheepishly as they ascended the last few floors.

Phasma scoffed. "When are you not?"

When they arrived at the top floor, Rey entered the throne room alone. The first thing she noticed were the blood red walls. The second thing she noticed was Snoke's decrepit face. The third thing she noticed was the army of guards in red, surrounding the large room. She almost wished Phasma had come with her.

"Come closer, my dear," Snoke said. His sinister voice sent cold shivers down her spine.

She took a few steps closer into the middle of the room.

"Closer," he repeated.

She walked a few more paces. When it clearly still wasn't close enough, she was suddenly lifted into the air and dragged forwards, the toes of her boots dragging across the linoleum floor. Snoke released his Force hold on her only after she was standing right in front of him, so close he could reach out and touch her. So close she could see every sinew under his skin and the piercing gaze of his eyes.

"I have been watching you," he said. "You have done well in your training. You have grown so much in a short time."

She could only nod. Her fingers dug into the top of her thighs to keep her legs from shaking.

"In fact, I can sense it in the Force. Soon, you will exceed even Kylo Ren."

Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Exceed?"

"Yes, my dear. There is only so much he can teach you, for there is still so much he needs to learn. Kylo Ren is weak. When I found him, I thought he would become the next Darth Vader, but I was wrong. It shall be _you_."

Snoke leaned in so that his face was only inches away from hers. She could feel his breath and forced herself not to flinch.

"Tell me, Rey, do you know the way of the Sith?"

His icy glare was too much to bear. She looked down to avoid eye contact. "No," she replied.

"The Sith have the rule of two. There can only ever be two Sith Lords using the powers of the Force on the dark side: one master and one apprentice. But now we have a problem, don't we? Myself, you, and Kylo Ren, that's one too many."

Her eyes flickered back to meet his. "So what are you going to do?"

He finally leaned back into his throne. "You have so much potential, my dear. Powers you have yet to learn. I can show you all of it. But first, you must kill Kylo Ren. Only then will you become my true apprentice."

She wanted to shake her head, but she felt immobilized. She didn't want any of this. Could he tell she didn't want any of this?

"You _will_ do as I say, right my dear?" his austere voice carried the distinct tone of a threat.

"Yes, Supreme Leader," she whispered.

Quickly turning around so he wouldn't see her cry, she walked towards the door. When she had almost reached the exit, he called out to her again.

"And your parents, Rey. I know who your parents are."

She wiped her tears and turned around.

"Isn't that what you have always wanted to know?" he said with a wicked smile. "Join me and I will give you all the answers. I'll be waiting."

* * *

Finn hung his head, looking down at the ground. They sat inside the old Jedi temple, the sanctum of millennia of history, and he felt like a colossal disappointment. The galaxy was on the verge of falling apart and the fate of the Resistance rested on his shoulders and...and he was proving to be a pretty shit Jedi.

"Look," Finn finally said, "I know I'm weak with the Force. I will never be strong enough to defeat Snoke or Kylo Ren."

"True," Luke said, "but war isn't only won by strength. If we only ever fought our battles with violence, how does that make us any different from the First Order?"

"So then how do we win?"

Luke led Finn outside and over to the edge of the cliff. It was a cloudy and the darkness of the night surrounded the island. Finn could barely make out the edge of the shore against the ocean. But over at the far side of the island, they could see the small campfire Chewie had set up beside the Falcon. It was over a mile away, yet the flames could clearly be seen against the cold night.

"When everything is at its darkest," Luke said, "even the smallest flicker of light will shine the brightest.

* * *

_A man and a woman, hugging her. They were there, so close, yet she couldn't make out their faces. "Be brave, Rey."_

_Then she was pulled out of their warm embrace. She looked up to see a Stormtrooper, holding her back by the arm._

_The man and woman were ushered away into a small ship. She watched the ship fly up into the sky, she fought against the guard as he dragged her into a transport with other terrified children, and she cried the entire time._

She woke up with her right arm punching the air, still trying to fend off the guard who took her away so many years ago. Her tossing and turning had practically thrown her out of the bed. She sat up, untangled her limbs from the sheets, and stood up. Putting on a black robe, she slipped out of her room.

It was still the midnight shift aboard the Mega-Destroyer. Time loses all relativity when they're flying for so long in space, but during the midnight shift, the ship falls quiet as the hundreds of passengers on board go to sleep.

As she wandered by the main bridge, she peered into the darkened room. Hux and the other officials were all gone. The only people inside were two technicians still operating the ship's guns as they fired relentlessly and rhythmically at the Resistance cruiser. She walked inside, down the central walkway, and stood right before the floor length window. The Resistance cruiser continued on, just out of reach.

The last hope in the galaxy, hanging on by mere droplets of fuel, was not giving up until the bitter end.

She wondered if he was out there, looking back. _Finn_. And the rebel pilot who she accidentally knocked out with the boulder. And the tall Wookie. And Kylo's mother.

One of the data terminals beeped behind her. The screen displayed a continuous feed of status messages from cities around the galaxy. There was mutiny over a newly imposed curfew and the First Order killed thirteen civilians. An ex-senator from the New Republic was reportedly seen in a small village, so the First Order burned the entire village down. The latest cohort of children was due to begin Stormtrooper training in two days.

And on and on it went. Murder, destruction, and terror. Everything the First Order touched would surely die.

How was this the way for a better life? How would the galaxy survive under a regime that valued order and efficiency over innocent lives? How would anyone make it out of this alive?

(But there was a small voice inside her head saying, _You will survive if you're the one ruling it._)

She exited the bridge and aimlessly wandered the halls. Without realizing it, she had made her way to Kylo's quarters. Stepping up to the doorway, the locks undid themselves as she could feel the Force energy swirl around her. She quietly walked across towards his bedroom.

He was asleep, laying curled on his side, taking up an astonishingly small amount of space on the large bed. She stepped even closer. He didn't wake.

Her hand reached to her side, but she realized she had left her lightsaber back in her room. However, Kylo's lightsaber was right there on his nightstand.

She could do it.

She could grab his lightsaber before he could wake up and pierce him with his own blade before he could even react. She could do it, so easily. Ascend to the role of Snoke's apprentice, become the greatest Force user to have ever lived, and...

...and what? This was not her destiny to assume. She was never meant for this story. Perhaps she's finally overstayed her welcome.

She moved away from his lightsaber on the nightstand and sat down on the bed beside him, careful not to wake him. He looked younger when he was asleep. Sadder, too.

"Are you going to say something or just stare at me all night?" When he suddenly spoke, she jumped in fright.

"How long were you awake?" she gasped out, hand over her racing heart.

He lazily opened his eyes halfway and offered half a grin. "A while."

If he knew she had considered murdering him, even if only for a moment, he didn't show it. He sat up and moved further up the bed to lean against the headboard and to give more room for her sit comfortably.

"So why did you break into my room?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Nightmares."

"About what?"

She only gestured with her hand, grasping at nothings in the air. Nightmares about everything, about her parents, about her childhood, about being too scared to die and too scared to live.

He nudged her with the side of his knee. "I'll tell you about my nightmares if you tell me about yours."

* * *

The next morning, they were met by an extremely irate Hux. "Where have you been?! Snoke wants to speak you both _now_."

Kylo and Rey shared a confused look. "Why, what's happened?" he asked.

"We captured the rebels who were attempting to disable our tracker," Hux said. "One of them offered up valuable intel. The Resistance were trying to escape to Crait on cloaked transports. And what's more, they found Skywalker."

The familiar old rage began to build inside Kylo once more. For the first time in his life, he had felt...content. Being with Rey, they could shut out the rest of the universe and just _be_, hiding in their own corner of the galaxy. He could forget his tragic past, forget Snoke's eminent death threat, forget the war that he's been fighting in for practically his whole life, and forget that damn voice inside his head. But now the facade was crashing down. The strings came reattached.

The two of them stepped into the elevator and were silent the whole ride up. In his head, he tried to calculate a million different ways how this could end, which didn't result in her dying. Would she ever forgive him, once she found out Snoke had told him to kill her?

"I must say, I am very disappointed," Snoke said as they entered the throne room.

"I don't know how they found him," Kylo said, "the map was destroyed and-"

"I am not disappointed about Luke Skywalker!" Snoke yelled, standing up out of his throne. "I am disappointed that after all this time, neither of you were up to the task!"

Just like that, it clicked together. Kylo looked at Rey and she looked back with a petrified expression. Snoke had set them up, pitted them against each other to see who would win. Of course he would have also told Rey to murder him. Of course he would ensure that all the loopholes were covered.

"Follow in the footsteps of the Siths who came before you. Prove yourself worthy, once and for all," Snoke declared. The guards in red all took a menacing step forwards, holding their weapons at the ready.

Kylo ignited his lightsaber, still looking at her. She immediately activated her lightsaber as well.

And that's when he realized he had overlooked the obvious solution. The Sith's rule of two and here there were three. But he disagreed with Snoke regarding who the spare should be.

He reached out with the Force, projecting his thoughts to her while trying to conceal it from Snoke. He willed her to understand. Yet she only stared at him with scared eyes.

The guards stepped closer. Snoke watched intently.

He channeled all his focus towards her in one last attempt. _Trust me_.

Her eyes widened slightly at understanding. She had heard his thoughts. And just like that, they side-stepped to stand back to back against the guards. All at once, the guards rushed in. Kylo and Rey fought seamlessly together, him reaching over each her shoulders, her swinging low to block a strike. They waltzed around the room, perfectly in sync. They were unstoppable.

Abruptly, his body was lifted 6 feet into the air. He dropped his lightsaber and the hilt clanged loudly against the floor. Before Rey could reach for it, Snoke summoned the lightsaber to his side.

"The universe is yours, Rey," Snoke said. "All you have to do is take it. Don't be scared."

With a flick of Snoke's fingers, Kylo's body turned in the air until he was facing her. Snoke's hold on him was unyielding. Kylo couldn't move a single muscle. He couldn't even breathe.

"No," she whispered. She deactivated her lightsaber and shook her head. "No, I don't want this."

"But you were always _meant_ for this," Snoke said. "It's in your blood."

"No!" Rey turned and started running towards the door, but Snoke immediately levitated her into a Force hold as well. He pulled her back as she fought against him in mid-air, limbs flailing, screaming obscenities. How was she doing that? How was she strong enough to fight it?

Meanwhile, Kylo still couldn't move. His lungs ached but he could not breathe. He thought he would faint.

Finally, Snoke let him go and he fell hard against the floor. He tried to push himself up, but his arms moved like molasses. All he could focus on was each laborious breath.

He heard the hum as Rey's lightsaber ignited again. But she hadn't done it. Snoke was controlling her, forcing her arms to raise the lightsaber as she stood above him. He still couldn't get up off the floor. Snoke wanted him dead, but he was too petty to kill Kylo himself. No, he needed to make Rey do it, so he could break the last of her spirit in the process.

She let out a heart shattering scream as she fought against Snoke through the Force, battling back control of her own body.

That's when he saw it, from the corner of his eye as he still laid there helplessly on the floor. Snoke had set his lightsaber on his armrest. This was his last chance. He was afraid and ashamed and in pain and he has never felt so desperate. Snoke was using all his attention focused on fighting with Rey. He wasn't paying Kylo any attention at all. Kylo was already good as dead.

A new kind of rage began to rise within him. He was tired of obeying commands, tired of being told he wasn't good enough, tired of being an apprentice. He fed off of this rage to find the energy to move. With a soft groan, he stared at the lightsaber hilt and slowly spun it so it was aligned. And before Snoke could notice, Kylo activated his lightsaber, piercing his old master right through the middle.

* * *

It was only when all the tension in her body left did she realize what Kylo had done. Snoke fell forwards out of his throne, severed in half. Kylo's lightsaber came flying out towards him and he reached up to grab it. She quickly helped him back up to his feet.

The rest of the guards resumed their attack as they rushed to avenge their slain leader. Rey and Kylo managed to fend them off and soon, they were alone in the blood red throne room, surrounded by bloodbath.

"Kylo," she whispered, looking at his eyes. His eyes had always been kind right from the start. She reached her hand up towards his face, daring to hope.

"No more tricks, no more commands," he said. "No more voice inside my head."

"No more fear?" she said hopefully.

He pressed her hand against his cheek and then dipped his head to kiss the inside of her wrist. She smiled and stepped closer, ready to wrap her arms around him when suddenly, his eyes turned darker. She stopped, stepping back again.

"Let the past die," he said, turning to look at Snoke. "Let it all die."

The sliver of hope she had dared to dream was harshly ripped away. "What?"

"No more Sith. No more Jedi." He turned back around to her with a bone-chilling gaze. "Just us."

The burning curtains revealed enough of the window for Rey to catch sight of the escape transports leaving the Resistance cruiser. The Mega-Destroyer was now firing at the transports, hitting the targets one by one.

"So what are you going to do?" she asked, pointing towards the Resistance ships. "If you don't call off the attack, this will be the end of the Resistance."

"It's time for the Resistance to end," he said. "And the First Order too. No more Republic, no more Empire. It's time for a new era. We'll finally end all the suffering and bring balance to the galaxy."

"We?"

He walked up to her and grabbed her by the shoulders. "Don't you understand, Rey? We'll rule the galaxy side by side, and we can finally be _free_."

She didn't know what to say. Part of her wanted to believe him. But part of her sensed the darkness consuming the last of his soul. It was too late. She didn't know who Kylo had become. Or perhaps, all this time, she had been blind to who he always was. Perhaps, even without the helmet, he had always been wearing a mask.

She couldn't stay with him. The realization broke her heart.

She couldn't stay with him, but how in the stars was he ever going to let her leave now?

That's when the ship split apart and everything went white.

* * *

When she woke up next, she was back on Kylo's carrier, the one they rode in the first time he met her. She was in the same room at the back, laid down across the red lounge chairs. She sat up and grimaced. Her head was ringing and she nearly heeled over.

The doors swung open and Hux stepped inside. "You're awake."

"Where are we?" she asked. She stood up and leaned against the wall to steady herself.

"On Crait. Their little _distraction_ allowed the last of the Resistance transports to escape here, but now we're ready to obliterate them all. We'll blow up the whole mountain if we have to."

She listened intently, but heard no gunfire. "So what are you waiting for?"

Rolling his eyes, he walked back out the door and nodded for her to follow. Walking into the cockpit, she peered through the window and saw Kylo dueling with an older man. "Is that...?" she looked back at Hux incredulously.

"Luke Skywalker himself," he responded.

But then she felt it: a strong current in the Force, stronger than anything she had ever felt. Even stronger than anything Snoke had done. Something was connecting to Crait from far away. Something...or someone.

She pulled Hux away from the pilots and spoke in a hushed tone so the others couldn't overhear. "It's a distraction. Luke Skywalker isn't really here."

"Oh, really?" Hux replied sarcastically.

"How did you figure that out?"

"I don't know, maybe when Kylo ordered us to fire hundred blasters all at once and Skywalker came out unscathed."

"Then why are you letting him fight a mirage?" she asked.

For the first time, Hux did not appear maniacal or conniving or haughty. He looked vulnerable and unmistakably human. "He told me about what happened in Snoke's throne room. He thinks himself the king now. All these years, it's been hard enough competing with him under Snoke, but now I have to bow to Kylo Ren?"

She smirked after deducing what he was trying to say. "You need the Resistance alive, because you want Kylo to lose."

He took her smirk and raised her one better. "And you don't want to be his queen."

With this new unspoken agreement, he pointed her to a small escape pod. She climbed in, strapped herself to the seat, gave her new unexpected ally a nod, and closed the hatch.

* * *

"Moving rocks," Finn muttered.

He watched the last of the crystal critters squeeze through the gaps between the boulders to escape from the cave. Leia and the resistance were there on the other side, he could feel it.

Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and remembered what Master Luke had taught him. He felt the energy in the air around him, on the ground below him, in the rocks before him. He felt the same energy inside him. Lifting his hand, he could hear the rocks lifting as well.

But when he opened his eyes, the levitating rocks immediately crashed onto the ground and he groaned. "No, no, no!"

It wasn't only the piled up boulders that were blocking the path. The cave's exit was only about two feet high and much too narrow to fit anyone through.

"Finn? Finn is that you?" Poe's voice called out from the small opening.

Finn dropped to his hands and knees peering into the gap to see Poe, who was also crouched on the ground.

"You found us!" Poe exclaimed. "But you gotta help us out. Can you make a wider opening?"

"I'll try." Shuffling back to his feet, Finn looked up at the daunting task ahead of him. It was one thing to move rocks; it was another thing to move the _whole damn mountain_.

He reached out with his hand towards the side of the mountain and...nothing. He squeezed his eyes shut and called out to the Force with every fiber of his being. Still nothing.

"Please," he whispered to the Force. _Don't let this be how we all die. Don't let this all end with me as a failure._

A crack. His eyes snapped open to see a visible crack grow on the mountainside as the stone broke into two. Through the cave opening, he could hear cheers and Poe's voice calling for everyone to move back.

But Finn wasn't doing this. He could feel that he wasn't, and he knew full well he was not strong enough to. So who was doing this?

He turned around and saw a hooded figure dressed in all black with one hand outstretched towards the mountain. With one more push, the entire side of the mountain fell apart and the impact sent a gush of wind back, blowing the black hood back. She met his eye and smiled.

"Rey!" He ran and hugged his best friend.

She clung onto him like he was the last good thing left in the universe. "I'm so sorry."

* * *

The other rebels were a bit wary when they saw her, but Finn quickly ushered everyone aboard the Falcon.

The last to exit the cave was an older woman with her hair pinned up. Instead of boarding the Falcon, she walked straight to Rey.

"You're General Organa," Rey breathed out in shock. Kylo's mother.

There was so much Rey wanted to say, so much she wanted to ask, and yet she only stood there speechless.

The general smiled and raised both her hands, palms facing up, towards Rey. Without hesitation, Rey placed her hands in Leia's.

Immediately, she was flooded with the voices of Jedi past. The words and scenery whirled by, an island in the ocean, an old tree, two twin suns. And light. So much light. Rey didn't realize how dark her world had become until she saw this much light.

Then, a memory. _A young, crying Ben ran into the room, cradling something in his hands. A small injured bird with a broken wing. He begged his mother to help it. So Leia knelt down, placed two fingers gently on the bird's wing, and healed it with the Force. The bird flew away and Ben began crying again now that it's gone. _

_"__You can't have it both," Leia explained. "If you keep holding onto it, it will die. If you want to save it, you must let it go."_

As the memory faded, Leia let go of Rey's hands with a final squeeze. "We have been waiting for you, Rey," the older woman said. "You are our last hope."

Finn approached them, looking up at the sky. "General, we need to go now." Then he turned expectantly to Rey. "You'll come with us, yeah?"

She looked at Finn, then at Leia, then at the mountain she had crumbled, and the decision was clear.

* * *

Kylo yelled in frustration as he walked back up the ramp to his carrier. As he walked into the cockpit, he slammed his fist against the wall. Everyone flinched at the sound.

And then he sensed it. She was gone.

"Where's Rey?" he asked.

The two pilots looked nervously at each other and avoided eye contact.

Kylo grabbed Hux by the collar and pulled him close. "Where is Rey?!"

"She realized that Skywalker was only a projection and flew off to stop the rebels from escaping."

He let Hux go, shoving the general back. "It's too late, they've already escaped. Tell her to come back."

Again, the pilots looked down, avoiding his gaze.

"We've been trying to patch her in," Hux said as he re-adjusted his collar, "but no response. She wasn't hit, but her pod is parked and she isn't responding."

Kylo felt his stomach drop. The rage and frustration faded away to be replaced by another old nemesis: abandonment.

"So you tell me, _Supreme Leader_," Hux continued. "Is she dead or is she a traitor?"


	3. part three

part three

The first time Kylo materialized before her was a week after she left. She instinctively fired her blaster at him. But he disappeared as abruptly as he appeared, and she only ended up blasting the pile of logs Chewie had spent all morning chopping. He threw his hands up and growled at her.

"Sorry," she said, "but did you see that?"

Chewie gave her a questioning look. She shook her head. "Never mind."

* * *

The second time their connection brought them together, another two weeks had passed. He half-heartedly raised his arms up. "Are you going to shoot me again?"

She tentatively stepped forward. "How are you doing this?"

"I'm not doing this." His voice was distorted, even more so than usual through his mask. Like he was barely here.

_His mask_. She tilted her head to look at the helmet he had smelted back together, red lines glowing around the cracks. "You put your mask back together."

"Nothing stays broken forever," he said quickly. "Where are you?"

A different question hung in the air, unspoken: _Why did you run away?_

But then Finn called out to her. She turned around, shouting back that she'll be right there. When she turned back around, Kylo had vanished once again.

* * *

"Are you sure the mole is that General Hugs guy?" Poe asked. They had been repairing some damaged ships all morning and were now taking their lunch break sitting under the shade of an X-wing. "Are we really gonna trust him?"

"Hux doesn't have an honest bone in his body," Rey replied. "But an enemy of an enemy is a friend. And for now, he is all we've got."

"Do you remember training at Reeqa?" Finn asked.

Rey choked mid-bite, fighting back the laughter. "You mean the first and only time you flew a ship? And almost killed Hux?"

"Oh, this I have to hear," Poe grinned.

"He was a nervous wreck," Rey said. "We were all taking turns learning to fly on the training grounds. Finn managed to get the ship up half an inch off the ground before he crashed it into three other parked ships. Nearly crushed the Hux and two lieutenants!"

"And that's how I was assigned to be a janitor," Finn deadpanned.

The three of them laughed as they shared the rations. It had taken some getting used to after she joined Finn and the Resistance. There was so much laughter. There were only some thirty-odd rebels, yet they banded together like a tight-knit family, a family she never even knew she wanted until they welcomed her in. She was scared it was all one big dream and that she would surely wake back up on the Star Destroyer.

"What about you, Rey?" Poe asked, leaning over to bump her shoulder with his. "How did you become so good at flying?"

She shrugged. "Flying was something I kinda fell in love with, I guess. There was this old woman who cooked the meals for us as we were training. Her cooking was horrendous, but she told the best stories. Sometimes at night, after curfew, I would sneak into the kitchen and she would tell me stories about adventure throughout the galaxy. I didn't know if they were true or made up, but I didn't care. I wanted to be like Han Solo."

They were silent for a moment. Finn gently placed a hand on her shoulder, giving it a small squeeze. "I'm sorry you didn't get to meet him. Han would have really liked you."

* * *

The third time she saw Kylo again, nine months had passed. The Resistance had settled into a new base and were sending agents to different planet systems for reconnaissance. The First Order had been suspiciously quiet since Snoke's death. They couldn't find anyone who had even seen Kylo Ren since Crait.

(Well, except for the two times Rey saw him through the Force, which she didn't tell anyone about. She's half convinced she made it up in her mind.)

Meanwhile, Rey and Finn continued their training under Leia's guidance. She was reading the Jedi sacred texts when Kylo's sudden voice startled her.

"Are you really reading that garbage?"

She shut the book and stood up, crossing her arms in front of her. "You came back. I thought...I thought I was going mad."

"I tried to forget you," he said quietly.

She glanced down and saw that his right hand was bleeding. His gloves were off and his knuckles were cut open, as if he had just punched a wall. "What happened?"

And then she could hear it-his thoughts. A menacing voice calling to him, antagonizing him, telling him to kill himself, telling him to kill her, telling him to kill everyone else, telling him he'll never be as powerful as the Sith.

"It won't stop, Rey." His voice was so pained, she naturally stepped closer, drawn to him like a habit. But then she remembered why she left all those months ago and why she couldn't stay with him. She froze, her arm half outstretched towards him.

"I thought Snoke was the voice inside your head," she said.

He ripped his helmet off and looked at her with wild, panicked eyes. "I killed Snoke. You were there. I killed Snoke, so why won't the voice go away?"

She wanted to tell him it'll be okay. She wanted to ask where he was. She wanted to tell him to come back home. How tiring must it be, living behind that broken mask? After all this time and her resolve still faltered whenever she thought of the night, in his room on the Destroyer under the starlight, when he almost smiled.

Instead, she took another step closer and reached out further with her hand. He stood still, watching her.

"I just need to know that you're real," she whispered.

Her fingers grazed against the fabric of his shirt before she pressed her palm against his chest. She felt his heart beat once, twice, three times. He raised his hand to rest over hers. And then he was gone.

A small droplet of blood was left on her hand.

* * *

Then, the message arrived. An auspicious audio recording was broadcast throughout the galaxy announcing that revenge was imminent. While no one could recognize the voice at first, it was strangely familiar to Rey but she couldn't figure out why.

Then, Leia rushed into the room and her jaw dropped as soon as she heard it. "That's impossible. It's Palpatine."

Then, Rey realized why it sounded familiar, and it horrified her. Palpatine was the voice inside Kylo's head.

* * *

It was only after the fourth time did Kylo finally understand what triggered their Force connection. It seemed Rey only appeared whenever he was the most distraught. This time, he was distraught for her own sake.

"There's something you need to know," he said.

She looked at him nervously, quickly glancing back and forth between him and off to the side. She wasn't alone, he realized. "Now is not a good time," she muttered.

"Where are you? I'll come to you."

Her eyes flickered up to his. For a second, he almost believed she looked happy. But then she shook her head, walking away from him. Before she disappeared again, he reached out and grabbed the yellow necklace from around her neck.

Minutes later, he was flying towards Pasaana. His Knights had alerted him to Rey's exact location and he flew as fast as his TIE fighter would go, desperately hoping she was still there when he arrived. To his surprise, he found her standing in the desert, waiting for him.

Since he was flying much too fast to land without going past her, he turned his steering wheel sharply to the right, flipping his ship to be flying upside down. As he approached closer, he opened the hatch and dropped out of the ship, landing on his feet right in front of her.

Like an old habit, he stepped closer and reached out to grab her wrist. "Rey, I-"

Before he could get any closer, she pulled out her lightsaber and activated it, holding it across her as a shield. He pulled his hand back, stunned not at the fact that she was blocking him but at the sight of the double yellow blades. It was still the same hilt she first made, but she must have swapped out the crystals.

He felt an inexplicable pain in his chest. Once, he had found a bewildered girl who looked at him like there was still something left to believe in. Once, he had thought he truly wasn't alone. Once, he had wanted to make her his Empress.

Now, for the first time in a year, she was finally standing before him again, on the same planet, under the same sun, breathing the same air. Yet seeing her in her new white outfit, wielding her new yellow lightsaber, and glaring at him with newfound righteousness, she has never seemed more out of reach.

"Please don't," she whispered.

Behind her, her friends were shouting for her to return to the old ship.

"Why did you leave?" He finally asked the question.

"I picked a side, _Ben._" Tears formed in her eyes. "Will you?"

Hearing his true name sent chills down his spine and into his heart. When was the last time anyone called him that?

"I thought I wanted to follow you anywhere in the galaxy, but I was wrong," she said. "Where you are now, I can't follow."

She turned around to walk back towards the ship but he called her back. "The thing I wanted to tell you. It's about your parents."

"My parents were nobodies," she replied angrily, without turning back around. "We looked into where I came from. My serial number, JA-4106? The JA is the short code for Jakku. But the First Order doesn't have patrol on Jakku, which means they don't regularly take children from there. The only reason a Stormtrooper would come from Jakku is if they were sold. I was never taken, my parents sold me off. And to think I spent all this time missing them and needing them, so much so that Snoke almost used it against me..."

He frowned. He was going to have to tell her the truth, and it was going to devastate her. And he wondered, for a moment, if it would devastate her _enough_. How much would he need to break her heart before she came back to his side? "That's not true. Your parents did sell you to the First Order, but they weren't nobodies. They did it to protect you."

She whipped her head back around, shouting furiously, "How was selling me to the First Order protecting me?!"

"Because Palpatine hasn't killed you yet, has he?"

She stared at him, desperately confused. "Why would the Emperor be trying to kill _me_?"

Before Kylo could respond, Finn came running out towards them screaming her name at the top of his lungs. He pointed towards the transport about to fly up back to the Star Destroyer. "They've got Chewie!"

With an angry scream, she reached out and stopped the transport in midair. The engines revved and the ship bobbled up and down, but her hold on it was stronger. Kylo and Finn shared a brief look over her shoulder. They were both dumbfounded.

And then Kylo felt it. A strong surge rippled out through the Force, stronger than anything imaginable. He knew what was going to happen. It's what always happened when Rey lost control.

You could even call it her signature move.

"No, stop!" Kylo shouted. He reached out with the Force as well and tried to release the transport from her hold, but it was too late.

A bright flash of electric energy surged from Rey's palm and struck the transport. She gasped and immediately pulled back, but the damage was done. The transport's engines sputtered out after the shock and the entire ship hurdled back onto the ground, bursting into flames. No survivors.

Pressing the back of her hand to her mouth, she ran back towards Finn and Poe before they took off in the old ship. Kylo watched them leave before turning back to the wreckage.

One thing was for certain: if he had any doubts before, he definitely knew Palpatine was telling the truth now.

* * *

"So we need someone who can reset a droid's protocol." Poe pondered it for a minute. "Yeah, I know a guy. Kijimi."

As C-3PO continued to complain and protest to no avail, Poe and Finn walked towards the front of the ship and were surprised to find Rey already in the pilot's seat setting the coordinates.

"Wait, we're going back to base first?" Finn asked, peering over her shoulder.

She stood from her seat and turned around to face them. Her eyelashes were still wet from tears, but her gaze had turned hard as a rock. "You two are going back to base first."

"Come on, Rey, we already went over this," Finn pleaded. "We're in this together."

"I killed Chewie," she said coldly. "I've killed so many people."

"It was an accident. No one blames you. Please, don't be like this."

"_I_ blame myself." She shook her head. "How am I any different than Kylo Ren?"

"Because you're a good person," Finn said firmly.

"How do you know that?"

"I've known you my whole life."

She looked at him with such a piercing gaze that he almost flinched. "No one knows who I really am."

Poe took a step towards her. "Look, I know everything has gone to shit, but we'll get through it together. We're not leaving you."

She paused, looking at Poe and Finn before she sighed. "I'm a ticking time bomb. Sooner or later, I'm going to destroy everything and everyone around me. I'm so sorry."

Before they realized it, she raised her hands and tapped both of them on the forehead. They immediately fell unconscious and dropped to the floor.

When they next woke up, they were on their beds back in the Resistance base dormitory. Leia stood over them, looking confused and slightly amused.

* * *

Rey and C-3PO followed the mysterious stranger as they crept through the shadows of Kijimi. The stranger hadn't been friendly when they first ran into each other on the streets, and then when Rey mentioned Poe's name, the stranger became outright hostile. Still, after some explanation and negotiation, her had agreed to help them. Countless Stormtroopers were marching up and down the cobblestone streets, searching for anyone still out after curfew and loudly berating anyone they found. Rey hadn't realized the patrols have become like this. The austerity and fear in the air hung heavy like a shroud around her.

How strange, she thought, as they snuck around a corner, out of sight of the passing guards. Just a year ago, she had been one of them. For as long as she could remember, she had been one of them. Another solider in a mask, another cog in the First Order machine, fighting for a regime that she never believed in.

Do they even believe in it? she wondered as she watched a Stormtrooper shove an older man onto the ground. Do they even realize they have a choice?

(But, do they really have a choice?)

Later, after C-3PO was reset and translated the message on the dagger, Rey sat with the stranger outside as Babu Frik put the droid back together again.

"I'm sorry, I don't even know your name," Rey said.

"Call me Zorii," the stranger replied.

"Thank you, Zorii. I'm Rey."

"Oh, I know."

Rey stared at this woman, wondering who was really under that helmet. If there's anything she's learned, it that heroes and villains alike all wear masks. "Why did you help us?" Rey asked. "I know it's not as a favor to Poe."

Zorii gave a short laugh, then stretched out her right arm to gesture towards the quiet town. "Look what it's come to. Across the galaxy, there are hundreds and thousands of villages just like this. They've taken all the children and killed anyone who tried to fight back, so now all that's left is just living each day in terror. And that's no way to live."

"You say they killed anyone who tried to fight back, but they haven't killed you yet," Rey pointed out.

The kind stranger raised the eyepiece of her helmet so Rey could see her eyes for the first time. Those were the courageous eyes of a rebel if she ever saw one.

Zorii pulled a small, golden disk out of her pocket. "I saved up for years to get this. It was going to be my way off the planet."

Rey took the medallion and marveled at it in her hand. "A First Order Captain's Medallion? How did you get one of these?"

Shaking her head, Zorii put her hand over Rey's and closed it over the medallion.

"Wait, no I can't take this from you!"

Zorii smiled with her kind eyes. Her hands stayed clasped firmly around Rey's. Suddenly, there was a shift in the Force. Rey could sense that Kylo was here, and she was running out of time. A second later, the large Star Destroyer appeared in the night sky.

"They win," Zorii said, pointing towards the Star Destroyer, "by making us feel alone. But there are more of us, more than they realize. We aren't alone. _You_ are not alone."

* * *

The fifth time their connection brought them together, Rey was back in his living quarters on the ship. After she snuck onto the Destroyer using Zorii's medallion and found the seized Millennium Falcon, she couldn't fight the urge to visit his room again. Here, where he trained her. Here, where she held him as he grieved. Here, where she told him her nightmares and didn't feel afraid anymore.

"Wherever you are, you are hard to find." His voice snapped her out of her reverie. How ironic to see him standing there before her, inside his own chambers, yet not knowing where she was.

"And you're hard to get rid of," she replied.

"I still need to tell you about your parents. The reason Palpatine-"

"No!" she shook her head furiously. "I don't want to know."

"You have to know!" he yelled back. "You can't keep running from who you are."

She scoffed at him. "Really? Then when are you going to stop running from who _you_ are, Ben Solo?"

He was clearly taken aback by this, but then his face twisted up in anger as he lunged at her with his lightsaber. She deflected his strike with her own.

"You don't get to tell me who I am," she said as they sparred across space, her yellow blade against his red one. "I am not part of your story, I refuse to be."

She didn't realize she had started crying until she accidentally knocked over the stand and Vader's old helmet fell through their connection and onto the ground before Kylo's feet.

"So that's where you are," he said before the connection abruptly ended.

Rey wiped her tears with the back of her hand and sprinted back out of his quarters, down the familiar corridors, and back towards the hangar. To her surprise, the Millennium Falcon and Threepio were nowhere to be seen. She spun in a circle, frantically searching for another ship, but it was too late. Kylo's TIE fighter landed in the hangar right before her and he stepped out, marching in long, quick strides towards her.

"The Emperor killed your parents because they refused to reveal where you were," he said. "All this time, he's been alive, waiting to find you."

"Why does the Emperor want to kill me?" she asked again. She was suddenly so tired. She didn't want to fight Kylo anymore.

"He doesn't want to kill you. He wants you to join him."

"What?"

"He is weak and he needs you for your powers. Because you have his powers."

She thought back to the moment she shot lightning from her hands and brought down an entire transport. Her heart sank and she nearly fell to her knees. No, no, no...

"You're his granddaughter." As Kylo spoke those words, it became the inevitable truth. "You're a Palpatine."

"No! You're lying!"

Kylo walked closer. Her mind raced. She could barely think.

"He wants to use you, but we can defeat him," Kylo said, stretching out his hand. "Join me, Rey. We'll end this, together."

And she almost took his hand. It was easier, wasn't it? Things were easier back then, aboard this Destroyer, when Kylo and Rey were still on the same side. But if there's anything that she's learned from all of this, it's that the right choice is hardly ever the easier choice.

Suddenly, strong winds blew in through the hangar's opening, knocking nearly everyone off their feet. The Falcon had appeared, and there stood Finn on the extended walkway, calling for her to jump.

She looked back and forth between Kylo and Finn. She peered intently into Kylo's eyes, desperately searching for the spark of light that he once had. But all she saw was a dark and empty soul. She could hear that voice in his head again, constantly running through his mind. The Emperor had infected Kylo's mind and broken him. She wouldn't let the Emperor break her too.

With one last apologetic look at Kylo, she turned and jumped onto the Falcon.

Once safely inside, she collapsed onto a bench and sobs wracked her body. Finn and Poe both rushed to her side.

"How did you find me?" she asked.

"Zorii sent a message to Leia," Poe explained. "Said you were still on Kijimi and that you needed help."

And on top of everything she was feeling—devastation at learning her lineage, despair over her parents' death, grief over killing Chewie, heartache over losing Kylo to the darkness—she was now overwhelmed with guilt for abandoning her friends. She thought she could protect them if she continued out alone. Turns out, she was the one who needed all the help she could get.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I shouldn't have abandoned you."

"You can try, but we'll always come right back," Finn said with a smile. "Stop trying to go it alone, Rey."

"You're not alone," Poe repeated.

It seemed like that's all anyone ever said to her these days. Finally, she was starting to believe it.

* * *

The sixth time they connected, Kylo was in a fitful sleep. He quickly jolted awake to find her sitting on the floor, hugging her knees to her chest, staring off into the distance.

"Did I wake you?" she said softly, still not looking at him.

"No," he lied. He swung his legs over the side of his bed and sat facing her. Then, wanting to be closer still, he lowered himself to the floor beside her.

He should be angry with her. He kept offering the galaxy for her—hell, he'd offer up the entire universe on a silver platter—yet she kept running away. He should be furious with her, but he wasn't. The uncontrollable rage never came. Something in the air changed whenever they were alone in his room. The moments felt tender and sacred. She was in agony and he could sense it, but he didn't know how to console her. There were dark circles under her eyes.

"Why aren't you sleeping?" he asked.

She turned and looked at him. "Nightmares," she whispered with the saddest smile.

Just as he was about to ask what her nightmares were about this time, she surprised him by moving closer and lying down, resting her head on his lap.

"Did you know I almost tried to kill you?" she mumbled, the last few words interrupted by a yawn.

"You what?"

"That one night I came in here when you were asleep," she said as her eyelids fluttered shut. "Snoke had told me to kill you, and for a second, I honestly considered it."

No, he didn't know she almost tried to kill him. Nervously, he wondered if he was now obligated to confess he had also tried to kill her.

"But you didn't kill me," he said.

She smiled, her eyes still closed. "No. And you didn't kill me either. And so here we are."

He reached over, wanting to tuck away a strand of hair, but then he hesitated and pulled his hand back to his side.

After a long pause, he spoke again. "A part of you wanted to take my hand earlier. I could see it in your eyes. Why didn't you?"

She opened her eyes and looked up at him. Here, in the quiet night, lightyears apart and yet impossibly intimate, in her half-asleep stupor, she finally told him the truth.

"I did want to take your hand. Ben's hand."

He sighed and leaned his head back, resting it against the side of his bedframe. "Ben Solo is dead. I destroyed him."

"Maybe," she muttered. "Or maybe, like a wise man once told me, nothing stays broken forever."

Long after she faded away, he could still feel her warmth. The room felt empty without her soft breathing.

Then, he realized just how quiet it really was. For the first time in his life, it was _silent_.

For the first time, there were no more voices inside his head.

* * *

He tracked the Falcon to the Kef Bir moon and flew over his father's old ship parked (read: crashed) against the side of a hill. Further ahead, a group of people milled about a small encampment. He flew by them as well. Reaching the ocean, he parked his TIE fighter on the narrow strip of rocky shore.

Out by the edge of the dark waters, Rey was struggling to pull an old skimmer into the water. The waves were so loud that she didn't hear his footsteps approaching.

He watched her lean all her body weight backwards, grunting as she strained to pull the boat. Finally, he spoke, "You do have the Force, you know."

In her surprise, her hands slipped off the edge of the skimmer and she fell backwards into the shallow water. She shot him an indignant look before standing up squeezing the water out of her hair.

"Also, you're planning on taking _that _out _there_?" he asked, nodding towards the tall high-tide waves. "That's a death wish."

"I'll be fine," she said. Taking his advice, she used the Force to move the skimmer the rest of the way into the water.

Just as she was about to jump onto the ship, he called out to stop her. "You don't need it. The Wayfinder."

She paused, turning back to him. "Of course I need it. How else will I get to Exegol?"

He shrugged with a sly grin. "You can use mine. Or you can drown to death. Whichever you prefer."

"I don't have time for this, Kylo," she said with exasperation. She jumped and pulled herself onto the skimmer.

She thought he was another Force projection, he realized with amusement. But how will she react once she realizes he is here, in the flesh? Will she fight him again, like they did in Kijimi? Or will she smile at him the way she did when they were last at an ocean, like they did in Chandrila?

"No seriously," he said, pointing behind him towards his TIE fighter, "I have it right over there."

When her eyes flickered out past his shoulder and saw his ship, she gasped. She jumped back down into the water and ran towards him, grabbing the sides of his arms with her wet hands. She held onto him and stood on her toes, scrutinizing his face.

"You're actually here?" she asked quietly. "Here here?"

He nodded. "I'm here here."

"But...I don't understand." Her eyebrows furrowed as she let go of him and took a step back. "Why are you here? I'm...I still can't join you."

"I know. I came here so I could join you, instead."

He watched her intently as her emotions changed from confusion to surprise to pure joy. She smiled and her eyes lit up the sky. And for the first time, he smiled back.

She suddenly jumped towards him, wrapping her arms around him. He stumbled back half a step but caught her in his arms just in time before they both fell. Then she was laughing and he was laughing and she pressed a quick kiss on his lips and how strange it all felt. It was as if he'd been locked inside a pitch dark basement and was finally seeing the light of day for the first time in a decade.

Rey was always good at breaking things. This time, she finally broke through the mask Ben wore on the inside.

* * *

"We can't trust him, Rey!" Poe cried out. "He's trying to manipulate you!"

The others certainly did _not_ welcome him with open arms. When he followed Rey back up from the shore towards the camp, they were met with a group of angry faces and weapons drawn.

An argument ensued, with Rey, Poe, and Finn shouting back and forth, while Jannah, the leader of the Kef Bir tribe, occasionally interrupted to point out that the three of them were arguing in circles.

"I know that's he's truly turned!" Rey exclaimed. "I can sense it through the Force. Can't you, Finn?"

Finn glanced over at Ben desperately. "I...I think..."

"Oh no, this doesn't get to be some Jedi mind trick party," Poe interjected. "We are not bringing _the Supreme Leader of the First Order_ back to base. That's final."

"What about as a prisoner?" Jannah suggested.

The trio fell silent. Poe and Finn shared a devious look. Rey turned to look at Ben and he shot her a pleading look. With one hand of her hip, she tilted her head to the side, thinking about it for a moment. "Yeah, alright. That works too."

"Wait what-" Before Ben could finish his protest, Rey reached up and tapped his forehead and everything started going to black.

Oh for hell's sake. He should have never taught her that damn trick.

* * *

When he came to, he was lying on the old leather seats in a familiar ship. He'd recognize the smell of the Millennium Falcon anywhere. Equal parts exhaust, blaster powder, and rust.

He sat up and noticed that his wrists were tied together with metal chains. At the sound of the chains clanging together, Rey walked over to him and happily sat down beside him.

"We're almost there," she said. "Gave the rest of the Resistance a fair warning that we had important cargo aboard."

"Is this all really necessary?" he asked, holding up his restrained hands.

"Yes, until everyone can trust you."

"And what do I need to do to make everyone trust me?"

She grinned like a child unable to keep a secret. "We've decided to defer judgement to the General."

Just then, he felt the ship land on the ground and everyone began departing the Falcon. His heart raced as he followed Rey down the walkway and out onto a jungle planet. A large crowd had gathered outside. Everyone wanted to get a look at him, it seemed. But standing before them all was the woman he'd been running away from for so long, yet his heart always came back to her. His mother.

Rey leaned over, gave his arm a supportive squeeze, then pushed him forward. He walked towards his mother and suddenly felt like a teenager again, not sure how to control his awkwardly long limbs. He tripped over a spare ladder on the ground and stumbled the last few steps until he finally stood in front of Leia.

His mother had gotten older. There were more grays in her hair, which she still wore pinned up in the Alderaan custom for grieving. The ache in chest grew stronger as he stood there, unable to think of what to say. _Sorry for burning down Uncle Luke's temple. Sorry for giving in to the dark side instead of fighting it. Sorry for killing Dad. I regret it every single day. Sorry for everything. I miss you._

Leia reached her hand up and he bent down to meet her halfway. She placed her hand around his cheek, like she used to do when he was a child. A silent tear drop fell from his eye and down onto her fingers.

"I..." he trailed off, still not sure how to say it. There weren't enough words that could ever construe his million apologies. There weren't enough hours left in his lifetime to ever repent his wrongdoings.

Instead, Leia just smiled. "I know."

* * *

Finn stood by the windows and watched as the freighter entered the Exegol atmosphere and through the thick layer of thunderclouds surrounding the entire planet. Suddenly, the Emperor's Final Order fleet came into view. Finn heard several gasps behind him as the others took in the sight. Hundreds and hundreds of ships with enough power to destroy the entire galaxy. The task before them grew exponentially more daunting.

More and more of the Resistance's ships appeared as Poe led the pilots down to the ominous Final Order fleet. Further out below them, two X-wings were landing on to the planet surface. From the distance, Finn could just make out the glow of the yellow double-saber and the red lightsaber. Instinctively, Finn reached down to his waist for the hilt of his own lightsaber.

"Hey, you ready?"

Rose's voice snapped Finn out of his thoughts. He let go of his lightsaber and turned to her. "Yeah."

She crossed her arms as she studied his face. "What's wrong?"

He sighed and turned back to the window. The two lightsabers on the ground were now no longer in sight. "I just feel like I should have gone with them," he said.

Rose gave him a knowing look. "I know, but we need you up here to help take out the signal tower. We need to stop these ships, just in case..."

"They'll be okay," Finn argued, more to convince himself than to convince Rose. "They'll kill the Emperor and stop all of it. But yeah, we need to take out the tower, just in case."

"Just in case," she nodded.

* * *

The large stone slab slowly descended and brought them into the depths of the ancient Sith temple. From the glow of their lightsabers, they could make out the tall, menacing statues, still perfectly intact in the dark ruins.

"You've been here before?" she whispered.

"Yes, he's right up there," he replied.

They cautiously walked down the long corridor, watchful of every shadow, ready to take on any attackers. Yet there was no one. The entire cavern was hauntingly silent.

Finally, when they reached the gallant Sith throne, they found the Emperor not attached to the giant machine as Ben had previously seen, but instead sitting helplessly on the ground. His skin was shriveled and decrepit, his eyes were sunken impossibly deep into his skull, and his back was hunched forward so he appeared even smaller than he was. This is what was left of him without his mechanical life support. The Emperor Palpatine, Darth Sidious, the last Sith lord, reduced to a pathetic heap of bones in an oversized robe.

"Ah, my dear granddaughter..." the Emperor said in a raspy voice, "I finally found you."

She immediately lunged forward, thrusting the edge of her lightsaber mere millimeters from his chin. "I am not your granddaughter."

The old man smiled sinisterly and the skin around his lips creased so deeply Ben was scared it would fall right off. "You can't change what's in your blood, Rey," the Emperor said. "My power already flows through you."

"And I will kill you with that same power." Rey pushed her lightsaber further forward, burning part of the Emperor's skin. Yet Palpatine didn't react, as if he felt no pain at all.

Something wasn't right. Ben spun on his heel looking around the empty chamber, not finding any sign of all the equipment and workers who had surrounded the Emperor the last time. Where was everyone? Why did the Emperor detach himself from the dark Force machinery that was the only thing keeping him alive? Why was he sitting there on the ground where the throne was less than a meter away? Why was he waiting for them?

"Rey, wait," Ben called out, taking a step towards her.

But she continued on, ignoring him. She pressed her yellow blade deeper into the old man, trying to incite a reaction but getting only the Emperor's twisted smile.

"Your parents tried to keep you a secret from me. I didn't even know I had a granddaughter until you were four. Then, they sold you off as a Stormtrooper! Your father was always so clever, I'll give him that."

"You killed him!" Rey pulled back and swung at the Emperor from the side, burning through his robe and knocking him down onto the ground. "How could you kill your own son?!"

Lying on the ground, already nine-tenth dead, the Emperor jeered her one last time. "Because he was useless."

Ben jumped forward to try to stop her, but it was too late. Rey was angrier than he had ever seen her and in one swift move, she positioned her lightsaber vertically above the Emperor and brought it down to the ground, fatally piercing him through his stomach.

The ground began to tremble underneath their feet. Disembodied voices began chanting in the ancient Sith language. Ghosts of all the Sith lords that came before now appeared in the empty amphitheater, cheering.

Rey pulled her lightsaber up and stumbled back against Ben. "What's happening?"

"I don't know why," he said, "but I think the Emperor was baiting you to kill him."

Suddenly, the ghost of Emperor Palpatine himself began to rise over his old, decaying corpse. He threw his head and laughed.

"Foolish girl!" The voice of his ghost was stronger, and sounded just like the maniacal voice that was in Ben's head. "You are a Palpatine after all, for you have such hate in heart."

"Why did you want Rey?" Ben asked, stepping forward in front of her. "Why did you want to be killed?"

"So I can be reborn."

The Emperor's ghost flew forwards and into Rey's body. She screamed in pain before her body began convulsing. Then, her body was levitated several feet in the air and her lightsaber fell out of her grasp and onto the ground.

"Rey!" Ben ran towards her but was propelled backwards, as if there was a strong shield surrounding her.

After a second, her screaming stopped and her body fell limp. Still floating in mid-air, she opened her eyes and the sight terrified Ben. In place of her warm, brown eyes, now a pair of yellow slit eyes glared back.

"The only way to become a Sith lord is to kill the former in an act of hate." Rey's mouth was moving, but it was the Emperor's voice that spoke. "As the Sith master, every Sith who ever existed lived inside me, and now we all live inside her."

All at once, all the ghosts who had appeared now flew towards Rey, entering her soul. Ben struck helplessly at the invisible shield with his lightsaber, but it was no use. He couldn't save her. This was all his fault. He should have never told her who she was and what happened to her parents. He fell right into the Emperor's plans and didn't even realize it.

Now, Rey's voice turned even deeper as she spoke from the collective conscience of all the Sith. "We were searching for the strongest Force user so we could take their body. At first, we thought it was you."

She finally came back down onto the ground. She walked towards Ben like a predator, stepping through where the invisible barrier was. She raised her arm and sent a Force so strong it sent him flying all the way across the chamber and into one of the tall statues. The impact caused a large crack, either in the stone statue or in Ben's back or in both. He rolled down onto the ground and just managed to scramble out of the way in time before the pieces of the statue came crashing down.

"That's why we got inside your head," Rey continued in her deep, ominous voice. "We pushed you until you cracked. We made Kylo Ren. We thought you would be the one to carry on the Sith legacy. But then, her powers awakened."

He struggled back onto his feet. The pain in his back was piercing, but he stood firm and swung at the possessed Rey with his lightsaber. In a simple swiping motion, she sent the lightsaber right out of his hands. It flew towards the direction of the entrance, bouncing against the ground before it fell over the ledge and into the abyss.

"Now that we have her, we are unstoppable!" Lightning shot out of her palms as she reached up towards the sky. The lightning surged, stronger and brighter. Ben looked up to see that the electricity was interfering with every Resistance ship flying above them.

"Rey, stop! Please," he pleaded. "I know you're still in there. You have to fight this."

"Rey Palpatine is dead," the voice said. "And so are you."

She pulled her hands down and aimed the lightning directly at him instead. The shock completely immobilized him as he flew backwards over the ledge and fell and fell and fell.

_This is how I die_, he thought. _Not as a villain or a martyr, but a fucking disappointment._

As he was about to hit the ground, he closed his eyes and braced for impact. But the impact never came. He opened his eyes to see that he was floating half an inch from the ground. Then, the Force gently released him onto the cavern floor.

He sat up and looked around frantically. No one else was here. So who just saved him?

Something was calling out to him. A subtle voice, too far away to make out clearly yet undeniably familiar. He listened intently for several seconds before he realized it was coming through the Force. He shut his eyes and focused, opening himself to the greater Force, trying to remember what Luke had once taught him about meditating.

The mysterious voice drifted closer. _Ben...Ben...Be strong, Ben, and get up!_

His eyes snapped open as he realized the voice was undoubtedly his mother's.

_How are you here? _he asked through the Force. _How did you save me?_

_This is our last chance. You have to fight, Ben. You are the last hope._

_Rey is the last hope_, he argued back.

_And Rey needs your help_, Leia replied. _Go to her. It's not too late._

With every ounce of willpower left in his body, enduring the pain of broken bones, he leaned against the side of the cave wall as he stood back on his feet. He gazed up to the top of the ledge from where he fell. The height was insurmountable.

_I can't make it, Mother. I can barely walk._

_You can. I will help you. I'll be with you the whole way._

He felt a jolt of the Force go through him and was suddenly invigorated. The pain was dulled, he regained his breath, and he climbed and climbed and climbed.

* * *

"Poe! Poe, are you alright?!" Finn was shouting into the comm-receiver, but got no response. They were standing atop the main carrier's left wing after successfully taking out its guns.

"The lightning probably fried the signal," Jannah said.

"What if something happened to Rey? How is the Emperor doing this?" Finn asked desperately.

"We don't have time to think about all that," Jannah said, pointing to the carrier's bridge that was transferring the signal to launch all the others. "We need to bring that transmitter down now."

Finn looked around before his sights set on the final set of guns which were still functional. It sent a large blast in their direction and Finn and Jannah ducked just in time.

He glanced down at his lightsaber, activating the blue blade. He had an idea.

* * *

When Ben arrived back in the throne chamber, Rey glared at him with those foreign, demonic eyes. He came to a stop before her and stood with knees bent, ready for the attack this time. He hid his right hand behind his back.

"You are a Skywalker after all," her low voice growled. "You just won't _die_."

She brought her arms up to strike him with lightning again. Just in time, he brought his hand from behind his back to reveal his lightsaber which he retrieved from the pit below. He deflected the lightning with his lightsaber, sending it ricocheting across the chamber. Rocks and boulders came tumbling down.

With a shove of her arms, the strength of the lightning intensified. He felt his feet sliding backwards as he strained to hold on, pushing against her force. With a pained grunt, he angled his blade so that the deflection turned back onto her. She let out a low-octave yell.

In the back of his mind, his mother's voice was a constant encouragement, telling him to be brave and strong and valiant. Telling him he has always been all those things. Telling him he has always been worthy. Slowly, more voices joined hers. His uncle's, his grandfather's, and hundreds of Jedi poured into his conscience. The voices filled him with more light than he ever knew possible, until it drove out the last of the shadows that still plagued his mind.

(What if he had grown up with these voices in his head, instead of Snoke's? Would it have been enough?)

Overhead, there was a loud explosion as ships fell from the sky. Whether it was the Final Order or Resistance, he couldn't tell.

Rey continued sending the surging lighting towards him and he kept reflecting the Force back to herself. He couldn't hold on for much longer. Even with the strength of all the Jedi past, he couldn't hold on. The act was slowly killing him.

At least, he thought, he was causing a diversion and giving the others more time. Giving Finn more time to destroy the signal. Giving Lando more time to call out to the others. Giving the rest of the galaxy a few more moments to decide there was still something left worth fighting for.

Finally, the red blade of his lightsaber sputtered out and he fell to the ground in exhaustion. The lightning now struck him in the center of his chest and pain seared through every inch of his body. Through it all, he kept his eyes locked on hers. Underneath the possessed voice, underneath the yellow eyes, he held onto hope that Rey was still inside. In desperate times like these, hope was only thing left, however foolish. _Nothing stays broken forever. _

His vision began to blur. His breath slowed. The voice of his mother came closer, as if he was about to join her in the realm beyond. His heart broke as he lay there dying, watching Rey stand above him while the monsters inside consumed her alive.

Just as his life Force was about to leave him, the onslaught of lightning stopped.

"NOOO!" The scream morphed from the low, demonic voice into Rey's own. She was overpowering them. She was battling for survival inside her own body. She screamed louder than he had ever heard. "GET. OUT. OF. MY. HEAD!"

She fell to her knees and her arms shook, a thousand souls fighting to control the limbs. She managed to bring her hands up to the sides to her head, pressing her palms into her temples.

With a guttural scream, electricity shot through her palms and into her own head. Her voice morphed back and forth between hers and the deep timber of the Sith.

She was killing herself. He struggled to push himself off of the ground.

His lightsaber was destroyed by the lightning, but hers still worked. On his hands and knees, he reached out and beckoned her lightsaber to him. As it flew in midair, one of her hands stuck out and stopped it, pulling the hilt towards her. He clenched his fists as he pulled harder.

"Ben!" Her voice was strained and distorted, but it was hers. She was begging him. Tears fell from her eyes. "Please!"

He staggered forward another half step, using the last of his strength to pull the hilt closer to him.

He couldn't overpower her. The lightsaber twitched between them in the tug-of-war, practically close enough to touch. Leaning forward, his extended fingers wrapped around the edge of the metal hilt. She leaned forward and did the same. He couldn't overpower her, so there was only one thing he could do.

"Please," she muttered through strained breaths. "You have to."

_It must be done, _the Jedi voices agreed.

He knew what he had to do, but didn't know if he had the strength to do it.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he activated her lightsaber.

She gasped.

The lightning abruptly stopped.

The twin yellow blades ignited, piercing them both in the chest.

* * *

Finn stood ready in front of the blaster. Jannah kept protesting that he was going to get himself killed, that he was a madman. And maybe he was. But it's the madmen who won the wars.

The blaster lit up as it ignited and the blaster bolt shot out right in Finn's direction. Holding his lightsaber like a bat, he swung at the blaster bolt, deflecting it up towards the window of the bridge. It shot through the glass, past the unsuspecting captain, and into their main controls. Soon, the entire bridge burst into flames.

"Nice shot, Finn!"

His heart raced as he heard that familiar voice again. "Poe! You're alive!"

"Yeah, almost crashed but I'm okay," Poe responses through the intercom. "The others answered our call. They're all here. We're going to win, Finn!"

And for a second, Finn truly believed it.

But then, a tangible shift occurred in the Force, strong enough that it knocked the breath out of him. It was what he felt when Luke had passed, but this time immensely stronger. Not one, not two, but three strong Force users disappeared, all at once.

Finn fell against the side of the ship. Clutching the wall for balance, he closed his eyes and searched through the Force for another call. He searched for Rey's Force signature, for Leia's, for Ben's...nothing. He searched for any possible sign at all, and only felt silence and stillness.

In this moment, he had become completely alone in the Force.

* * *

After the debris had settled, Ben peeled open his eyes. Rey lay on the ground beside him, a gaping wound in her chest. He crawled over until he could hold her in his arms, pressing her lifeless head against his shoulder.

Fate hadn't been kind to them, but despite it all, they found their way to each other. In this vast universe, perhaps that's all you could ever ask for. Of everything that ever was and everything that will ever be, he was glad he found someone who made him feel a little less alone, a little less small.

Then, she faded away until he was only holding onto her hollow clothes.

_Does it hurt? Dying? _he asked.

_It feels like nothing at all, _Luke's voice responded.

_But don't our word for it, _Leia added_. _

Then, a voice he never thought he would hear again called out to him from the Force realm beyond. Rey's voice, her true voice, whispering his name, beckoning him to join her_. It's peaceful here, Ben. Don't be afraid._

Slowly, he laid down on the cold ground and with a final, heavy sigh, he closed his eyes.

* * *

Finn placed the three lightsabers in the cloth. His own, which had once belonged to Anakin and Luke Skywalker. Ben Solo's. And Rey's.

He stood and used the Force to send the lightsabers deep into the sand.

When he looked back up, an old woman was standing there, watching him.

"No one has been here in years. Who are you?"

He glanced down at the serial number on his skin. Even after all this time, he couldn't escape his past. "I'm Finn."

"Finn who?"

He glanced back towards the old Tattooine building and saw four ghosts materialize. Luke, Leia, Rey, and Ben. Luke gave Finn an encouraging nod.

They couldn't escape the past, but the future was for the taking.

He turned back to the old woman.

"Just Finn."

* * *

**note: **sorry this took so long. let's just say this final tros chapter really derailed... whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, you tell me. thanks for reading this small chaos of a story.


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